Aslambek Aslakhanov: "One needs a team to bring order to the Caucasus"

Major-General Aslambek Aslakhanov, former member of the Federation Council and Adviser to the President on the problems of the North Caucasus, President of the All-Russian Association of Law Enforcement Agencies and Special Services employees, spoke to Vestnik Kavkaza about Ramazan Abdulatipov’s work, the head of Dagestan, as well as Alexander Khloponin’s activity, Plenipotentiary Envoy of President of Russia in the NCFD.

-          Could you please comment on the work of Ramazan Abdulatipov, who became head of Dagestan a year ago?

-          Any new leader experiences difficulties. He has to build a team. And it is one thing when you read about a situation in newspapers, and another thing when you face it directly. He has many problems, which he tries to solve at least. And Dagestan is a special item. There are 39 titular ethnic groups and nationalities. Sometimes two local villages don’t speak each other's languages. And only the great Russian language enables people to communicate. And representatives of all ethnic groups and nationalities want to be leaders. So any head of Dagestan faces serious problems: how to provide an ethnic policy, when there are so many ethnic groups? How to avoid offending? How to satisfy everyone? And it is impossible to satisfy everyone. Thus, it raises concerns, as well as those people who try to prove their unique religious belonging with deadly force, who think that only they are right and their interpretation of Koran enables them to kill innocent people, still threaten peaceful life in the republic. Unfortunately, it is going on, and it’s hard to tell if it will stop in the near future.

-          Do you think information on Khloponin’s resignation has grounds?

-          Notwithstanding who comes to the Caucasus to put it in order, he will fail. Many people come and don’t know the Caucasus, they don’t know whom they can rely on and how problems can be solved. When Medvedev was President, he ordered to develop a youth program. It was developed. Our most dreadful problem is that young people are abandoned, nobody needs them. There are no jobs; it is a problem to enter a university without a bribe, as well as to get a job without a bribe. The reason for this is unemployment and idleness. It is difficult to satisfy everyone. Ambiguous information is coming. Khloponin did his best. I cannot say there is a bad opinion of him, as, despite numerous problems, he tried to solve them. But a good team is needed for this, i.e. respectful people, rather than yesterday thieves who back in the time of the CPSU tried to get close to big money, and now they are top officials again. The population considers many of them to be economic criminals. Unfortunately, they are still working and haven’t been replaced. I don’t think someone will be better than Khloponin. Khloponin at least tried to do something sincerely and he did. He’s not God; Khloponin cannot solve the big problems