RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 13, Parts I and II, 19 January 2001: excerpts

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:47:10 +0200 (EET)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 13, Parts I and II, 19 January 2001: excerpts

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: RFE/RL <[email protected]>

RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 13, Parts I and II, 19 January 2001:
excerpts


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 13, Part I, 19 January 2001

A daily report of developments in Eastern and Southeastern Europe,
Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia prepared by the staff of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

RUSSIA
...................

KREMLIN DRAFT LAW CALLS FOR REDRAWING TERRITORIAL MAP.
"Vremya MN" reported on 18 January that a new draft law specifying the
ways in which the constitutional-legal status of subjects of the
Russian Federation can be changed is now under consideration.
(Federation and Nationalities Minister Aleksandr Blokhin officially
confirmed the existence of this legislation to "Segodnya," that paper
reported the same day.) The legislation seeks to avoid constitutional
problems by requiring that any change be initiated from below, either
by the population or the regional leaders, rather than imposed from
above, the paper said. PG

MOSCOW POLICE ARREST VIETNAMESE AFTER DISORDERS IN MARKET.
Police in the Russian capital on 18 January arrested more than 30
Vietnamese who worked in one of the city's food markets after disorder
arose when the authorities attempted to check their documents,
Interfax-Moscow reported. PG

...................

___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 13, Part II, 19 January 2001


EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE
...................

SLOVAK CENSUS TO HAVE QUESTIONNAIRES IN ROMANY LANGUAGES. 
The Slovak government decided to add the Romany language to the list
of minority languages in which the May 2001 census will be conducted,
Deputy Premier Pal Csaky told CTK on 18 January. Earlier, Romany
organizations protested against the cabinet's failure to include
Romany among the census languages. Bilingual Slovak-Romany
questionnaires will be used in localities where the Roma make up 20
percent of the population and more. The census will determine, among
other things, the amount of financial aid from state authorities
received by organizations representing national minorities and
churches. Csaky said the census will not have a separate entry for a
"Moravian nationality." MS

SLOVAK 'MEIN KAMPF' PUBLISHER INDICTED. 
Agnes Burdova, publisher of the first Slovak translation of Adolf
Hitler's infamous "Mein Kampf," has been charged with support of a
movement suppressing citizens' rights and freedoms, CTK reported on 18
January, citing Markiza TV. If convicted, she faces a sentence of
between three and eight years in prison. MS

HUNGARY'S JEWS PROTEST BARDOSSY RETRIAL PROPOSAL. The
Federation of Jewish Religious Communities in Hungary (MAZSIHISZ) on
18 January protested against the judicial initiative launched by the
Hungarian Justice and Life Party to have Horthy-era Prime Minister
Laszlo Bardossy retried (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18 January 2001).
MAZSIHISZ said that Bardossy was one of World War II's "darkest
figures," who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Jews. Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky said any politician or party
that dispute the historically well-established Bardossy crimes
"seriously jeopardize Hungary's peaceful future." MSZ

...................

END NOTE

The Nationality Question And Russian Foreign Policy

By Paul A. Goble

A Russian foreign policy analyst has urged Moscow to use its
nationality policies at home to promote its foreign policy goals. But
he has warned that the Russian government must at the same time take
into consideration certain foreign policy challenges when dealing with
its domestic ethnic minorities.
Writing in "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 12 January, Igor Igoshin argues
that those who view Russia's numerous ethnic issues as a purely
domestic affair are deeply mistaken because "a number of foreign
policy goals critically important for Moscow are connected in the
closest way with the nationality question," the term Russians have
used since the 19th century to denote interethnic issues.
Igoshin identified four such foreign policy issues. Two of these
involve situations in which he argues the Russian government can use
ethnic issues to promote its own agenda.  The other two confront
Moscow with challenges it can meet only if it understands their
implications for domestic interethnic relations and responds
appropriately both at home and abroad.
The first of these issues, Igoshin says, involves "the support of the
Russian-language population in the former Soviet republics." This is
in the first instance a moral and ethical requirement because these
people who were native to Russia were "practically thrown to their
fates" in the early 1990s.
But, he adds, "this problem has another side as well." The
Russian-speaking communities in many of the former Soviet republics
form "a significant portion" of the population- in Latvia, for
example, some 34 percent in 1991. Such diasporas, Igoshin suggests
"are capable of becoming a serious internal political factor in former
Soviet republics which will have a positive influence on the
relations" between these countries and Russia.
He pointedly notes that there are "many such examples" of diasporas
having this effect: "The Jewish community of the U.S., which is much
smaller in size, has exerted through pressure on the government the
most powerful support of Israel over the course of several decades."
Russian-speaking groups abroad, Igoshin says, are fully capable of
playing the same role in what he calls "the near abroad."
Moreover, the use of such groups in this way, he suggests, is
something Russia can do "despite the widespread view" that its foreign
policy is weak. Russia's economic presence, its ability to direct the
flow of goods across some countries but not others, and its ability to
conduct propaganda, Igoshin argues, enable Moscow to have an impact on
Russian communities abroad and, through them, on the governments of
the countries in which they live.
The second of these issues, again one where Moscow can use its ethnic
policies to promote its interests, involves the possible unification
of Russia and former Soviet republics into a single state. One such
example is Moscow's ongoing efforts to form a new union state with
Belarus.  Obviously, Igoshin says, not all countries of the region are
interested. Those that are are likely to become more so, he continues,
if Moscow recognizes that "the nationality question is one of the
capstones" of such a process.
To the extent it acknowledges this fact, Igoshin argues, "a most
important task for Russia is the formation of conditions which will
assist the further improvement of relations between the peoples of
Russia and the states with which unification is really possible."
Igoshin does not draw the obvious corollary that Moscow will have less
interest in doing that with groups whose co-ethnics outside of Russia
are not interested in unity.
The third area where Russia's nationality question takes on a foreign
policy dimension, albeit a more defensive one, concerns what Igoshin
calls "the sharpening of tensions in the southern direction," the rise
of Muslim groups which threaten Russia's interests in Central Asia and
the Caucasus.
He says that this threat to ethnic harmony within Russia is
potentially so great, as Chechnya has already shown, that Moscow must
be prepared to counter it even with non-diplomatic means, including
the actions of special services, military actions, and so on. Failure
to do so, Igoshin says will mean that it will be "simply impossible to
defeat national extremism in Russia" itself.
And the fourth area he identifies is also one in which Igoshin argues
nationality policy must play a role:
countering what he suggests is "the extraordinarily complex problem"
likely to arise in Russia's Far East. "The active resettlement into
Siberian regions of representatives of neighboring states with more
dense populations"-by clear implication, the Peoples' Republic of
China-presents a threat to Russian control.
Indeed, he suggests that this influx of outsiders could lead to a
situation envisaged by the old Soviet anecdote about a future BBC
report that there has been "a stabilization of the situation on the
Finnish-Chinese border."
On the one hand, Igoshin's argument is little more than a revival of
an early Soviet approach in which the nationality question was always
linked to colonial issues, and a restatement of the frequent
observation in other countries that foreign and domestic politics are
inevitably interrelated-especially as societies become more open.
But on the other hand, the appearance of this argument in such
explicit form now suggests that Moscow is increasingly open to the
possibilities of using ethnicity to promote its goals, but also
increasingly concerned that others may use ethnicity against Russia
itself.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               Copyright (c) 2001 RFE/RL, Inc.
                     All rights reserved.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE
Send an email to [email protected] with the word
subscribe as the subject of the message.

HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Send an email to [email protected] with the word
unsubscribe as the subject of the message.

For subscription problems or inquiries, please email
[email protected]
_________________________________________________
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Submissions: [email protected]  
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] 
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================