Window on Eurasia: Since Crimea, Moscow has Stepped Up Repression of Numerically Small Peoples of the North, Berezhkov Says

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, January 2 – After occupying Crimea and facing opposition from the Crimean Tatars, Moscow has stepped up its repression of the numerically small peoples of the North, sought to gain control of their organizations, and taken steps to cut them off from support from abroad, according to Dmitry Berezhkov.

 

            Berezhkov earlier was vice president of Russia’s Association of the Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples of the North but who was forced to flee to Norway where he now is a student at Tromso University after successfully fighting Moscow’s request that he be extradited to face charges for extremism (barentsobserver.com/ru/politika/2013/06/dmitriya-berezhkova-vypustili-iz-tyurmy-15-06).

 

            The “Narody Rossii” portal has now posted paper he delivered at Tromso in November on “The Influence of Changes in the Political Atmosphere of Russia on the Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North” (narodyrossii.com/dmitrij-berezhkov-posle-kryma-vlasti-neobosnovanno-opasayutsya-i-malochislennyh-narodov/).

 

            Berezhkov’s report provides one of the most comprehensive and balanced assessments of the situation the numerically small peoples of the North face, a group that is vastly more important than their numbers might suggest because they increasingly dominate the populations of many regions in the northern third of the Russian Federation.

 

            After Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, the Northern Peoples activist says, “the domestic political order of the day in Russia acquired a repressive character,” with the Kremlin moving from “soft authoritarianism toward a totalitarian political system,” something that could not but affect the numerically small peoples of the North.

 

            Moscow’s law on foreign agents was used by Russian officials to close or reduce the activity of various organizations in the North, he points out. And the “pro-government” media began to attack the leaders of the indigenous peoples, claiming that they were working on behalf of other governments to destroy Russia.

 

            Among the steps the Russian authorities have taken has been intervention in the elections to the leading bodies of the organizations of the indigenous peoples, including the Association of Indigenous Numerically Small Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, and the transformation of them into “classical GONGOs,” that is, government-organized NGOs.

 

            The situation became worse, Berezhkov says, after the Crimean Anschluss because Moscow officials concluded that the opposition of the Crimean Tatars to that action reflected attitudes that must exist among the numerically small peoples and that the latter thus represent a Trojan horse-type threat to Russia that Western governments might use.

 

            Such an extrapolation of the Crimean Tatar situation is “quite absurd” given the small numbers and wide dispersion of the peoples of the North and the current “disorganization” of their movements, Berezhkov says. But despite that absurdity, it is now clear that such a view is guiding Moscow’s actions.

 

            The central government is working to cut ties between the numerically small peoples of the North with their co-ethnics abroad and with international rights groups, and it is imposing particular limits on contacts between trans-border peoples like the Inuits, the Aleuts, and the Saamis.

 

            At the same time, Berezhkov says, Russian businesses active in the North have used the suspiciousness of the government as yet another excuse to elbow aside the peoples of the North from access to the natural resources of these peoples.

 

            The activist says that everyone needs to be prepared for three processes that will unfold in Russia. First of all, Berezhkov says, the confrontation between Russia and the West will intensify, and Moscow will further suppress civil society at home, including among the numerically small peoples of the North.

 

            Second, because such repression is likely to last for a long time since there is no immediate threat to Putin on the horizon and that he has the capacity to suppress any challenge to his rule.  And third, both those inside Russia and those abroad need to recognize that sanctions are hurting the Putin regime but are not likely to lead to its demise anytime soon.

 

            It is thus important to prepare for the long haul and to think defending what one can until Putin leaves the scene. But it is also important to recognize that “unfortunately, the experience of other countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Yugoslavia show that the destruction of a totalitarian regime does not always lead to an improvement of the situation in the country” involved.

 

            However much many would like it to, Berezhkov says, “the end of the Putin era will not mean an automatic transition to democracy.” Recognizing that danger, he continues, must be the basis for thinking about the future. The numerically small peoples of the North have long experience with dealing with repression and one can hope that they “will be able to survive the difficult burden of the Putin regime.”

 

            If they can continue to do so, he concludes, “then the indigenous peoples will live in the future.”