Escalation of militant activity in Dagestan and in the North Caucasus continuing
The continuing escalation of militant activity in Dagestan and in the North Caucasus in general is a source of serious concern for some people and a cause for malicious joy for others. But the fact remains: every day people die in Dagestan. No matter who it is – police officers or militants – they are Dagestani people, representatives of a very young and yet fragile nation, which has been forming over the last few centuries from different ethnic groups inhabiting the territory of Dagestan. And now this young nation is virtually destroying itself in a civil conflict.
Some experts think that this process is triggered by some third external force. Mikhail Fedotov, Chairmen of the Russian Federation Presidential Council for Civic Society Development, shares this opinion. During a session of the Council in Makhachkala, he said that to fight the process we should find its causes. However, during the sittings of the Council, the discussion of causes was very limited, as its participants were overwhelmed by the descriptions of atrocities presently being committed in Dagestan. Of course, this problem should be discussed and the culprits should be punished, but without an understanding of the hidden reasons of the extremist behaviour of certain social groups in Dagestan it is impossible to stop the violence.
One of the main reasons for the ongoing armed conflicts is the existence of a large number of rogue armed units. There are some 50 heads of cities and districts in the Republic, each one of them has its own armed escort and all of them are in a state of political strife with each other. Unfortunately this strife is not as much ‘political’ (i.e. led by means of parliament and public discussions) as it is physical: politicians compete with their rivals not by means of public parties and organizations, but by means of military units. Clans are also active participants in this strife for power.
Every day bureaucrats, their bodyguards or supporters are being killed in this political war. The existence of security escorts for officials of all levels is a common thing in Dagestan and is considered legal, despite the fact that they are funded from the budget, which is unconstitutional. However, there is no guarantee that the members of these ‘legal’ armed units are not participating in criminal or extremist activities at the same time. Many such ‘bodyguards’ were recognized as militant leaders after being shot by the police. Ironically, the more the federal budget donates to Dagestan, the more armed units are being formed and the more people are being killed.
Another aspect of the problem is that the number of police structures and unities within the Republic is far too large. Every police unit in each region has its own commander, who has his own interests. So these law-enforcement units turn out to be as politically-involved as the criminals they are supposed to be fighting. Dagestani politicians got into the habit of labelling their political and business rivals as terrorists and religious extremists in the beginning of the 2000s, and now the scale of this phenomenon is so massive that those who were accused of being terrorists, even without proof, have to leave the Republic or hide, as they know that the politically-compromised police or armed units of their rivals would eventually come for them.
The third issue is the general level of social well-being in Dagestan, which is very poor, despite all the federal development programs, which simply do not stipulate measures truly sufficient to correct the situation. The Makhachkala session of the Presidential Council for civic society development discussed such issues as ‘inter-confessional peace’, ‘civic society against corruption and terrorism’, ‘human rights as an indispensible part of the struggle against extremism’.
Many renowned experts and human rights activists participated in the session. They’ve undertaken the first step towards freeing police authorities from clan influence and putting them under public control. This is, however, only the first step on a very long and hard path. The main problem now is that the clans are too powerful, while Dagestani society is too inert or even criminally negligent and corrupt itself to fight them.
Musa Musaev, Makhachkala, exclusively to VK
