To settle inter-ethnic conflicts with migrants, the Belarusian experience can be used

By Vestnik Kavkaza

On Sunday, participants of a mass unauthorized demonstration ran amok in the Moscow district of Biryulyovo Zapadnoe. They broke into and vandalised the trade center “Biryuza”, as they thought the center was a place where migrants from the CIS countries work. The reason for riots was the murder of Yegor Shcherbakov. The police investigation is on-going.

The leader of the Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov told Vestnik Kavkaza that the problem of inter-ethnic conflicts had no single solution. “An ethnic policy is needed. First of all, it should be based on a fair socio-economic policy. If a person has no job, doesn’t know the language and has no conditions for a normal life, it will obviously lead to crime and the kinds of protests which resemble chaos and riots. In a multinational country, a policy should be well thought out, estimated and developed. We have few experts, few smart educated people, but few programs which would raise and form respect for traditions.

A lot of people have moved to Moscow who have no idea about the city and its customs. The things which the ruling party is doing today cause such protests. The injustice of inter-ethnic relations is perceived acutely. The majority of citizens who successfully and normally worked have been deprived of jobs; the things without which a person cannot live have been eliminated – good education, good science, care for children, the elderly, women. We have to restore this together. We cannot accept chaos or riots. It is very dangerous.”

According to Zyuganov, the developments in Biryulyovo were consequences “of the dull policy which has been provided recently – financial, economic and migration policies. It is a repetition of Manezhnaya Square, but in the suburbs of Moscow in severe and unacceptable forms.”

Zyuganov says that “it seems the government and the presidential administration know nothing about each other’s work. Look at the budget which was presented in the Duma, it will only stir up inter-ethnic relations. The problems cannot be solved by forceful measures only. I, Melnikov, Rashkin and Klychkov developed a draft to regulate the process at least in Moscow and the Moscow region and other major cities. In three months nobody has considered anything. The report contains a part devoted to the experience of Belarus; how brotherly Belarus solves these problems. There is no such mess. An enterprise gets a limit for attracting a foreign labour force. An enterprise writes a request for certain workers, a certain job, certain salary, certain accommodation, medical insurance – it is all determined. An enterprise which takes a worker for a job is responsible for him. He is taught the national customs, traditions, culture, so he can work effectively. We have released three movies about Belarus’s experience – about development of agriculture, machinery, and patriotic internationalist education. We asked TV-channels to show the movies, look at how the problems can be solved. They can be settled not only by forceful methods.”

Zyuganov is sure that no problems can be settled in a multinational country without human resources structure regulation, including ethnic structure: “You point to the Soviet era. I was working in the North Caucasus for 7 years. In Chechnya powerful people, including religious activists, came to me and said: “We need a Russian as a top manager, or a Ukrainian, or a Belarusian. We need a Russian, the secondary position can be taken by a representative of a clan, a talented and smart man.” If the police head is from one clan, a prosecutor can’t be from the same clan. This had been developing for centuries. We realize this. It should be regulated by the state. When Russian managers were eliminated from the republics, they began to ask why young people had such radical moods. You shouldn’t ask. It should be regulated in a multinational country, and in this case everybody will receive respect. It concerns the language, customs, traditions, the culture, and so on.”