RFE/RL on Meskhetians in Krasnodar

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Subject: RFE/RL on Meskhetians in Krasnodar 

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RFE/RL on Meskhetians in Krasnodar 


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL Russian Federation Report
Vol. 3, No. 17, 9 May 2001

A Survey of Developments in the Regions Outside Moscow Prepared by
the Staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

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



KRASNODAR

COSSACKS CONDUCT POGROM AGAINST MESKHETIANS... 
Local Cossacks in the Krymskii raion in Krasnodar Krai have been
conducting a campaign of violence against the stores and homes
belonging to Meskhetians, RFE/RL's Krasnodar correspondent reported on
25 April. The conflict started when an old man, who was an ethnic
Russian, was beaten outside a store in the village of Novoukrainskoye,
and rumors circulated that the man had been attacked by Turks.
Representatives of the local Turkish society tried -- unsuccessfully--
to convince the Cossacks that the "hooligans" involved in the attack
were not Turks but Azerbaijanis born in Georgia. The Meskhetian
community is split between those who consider themselves Turks, and
those who believe they are ethnic Georgians. Two days after the
attack, four busloads of Cossacks arrived in the town dressed in
camouflage, carrying batons and gas pistols. Ivan Bezuglyi, the Ataman
of the Tamansk department of the Kuban Cossack forces, went up to one
house where a Turkish family was residing and declared that the
Cossacks had arrived to verify the passport regime. According to the
correspondent, the Cossacks for the most part found that most of the
adults were at work but all the men who they did find at home were
rounded up in buses and taken away. After the leaders of the Turkish
society finally managed to get the local police to intervene, the
Cossacks released some six men of Turkish descent. They had been
beaten severely, their clothes ripped and faces bloodied, and despite
repeated requests, their personal documents were not returned to them
by the Cossacks. On the same day, as the men were taken away, a group
of masked men from one of the Cossack buses entered a shop owned by a
Meskhetian and beat one of the shop's assistants and pulled all the
goods off the store's shelves. Although several Meskhetians have been
treated for wounds in the hospital, so far no criminal proceedings in
the matter have been launched. JAC

.DEMAND THEIR EXPULSION FROM THE KUBAN... 
According to RFE/RL's Krasnodar correspondent on 24 March, at numerous
unsanctioned meetings, Ataman Bezuglyi has demanded more or less the
quick expulsion of ethnic Turks from the Kuban, using as his main
argument "the age-old incompatibility of Slavic and Turkish
populations." The Cossacks also accuse the Turks of showing a lack of
respect for their Cossack neighbors, and of providing assistance to
radical Muslim organizations. According to official information there
are some 13,500 Meskhetians in the krai, but unofficial estimates put
the total at 20,000. Of this number only some 2,500 have Russian
citizenship, the rest are residing with temporary registration, having
become as of 1 February persons without citizenship (see "RFE/RL
Caucasus Report," Vol. 4, No. 13, 30 March 2001). Aleksandr Blokhin,
the federal minister for federation, nationality, and migration
policy, has said that lists are being formed to send some of the
Meskhetians to Turkey, Georgia, and other countries, including Canada.
JAC

.AND OPPOSE OPENING OF TURKISH CONSULATE. 
A number of ethnic organizations in Krasnodar Krai have expressed
their opposition to plans by the Turkish government to open a
consulate in Novorossiisk, "Izvestiya" reported on 8 May. According to
the daily, Ishkhan Khudoyan, head of the Kurdish society of the Kuban,
said with the creation of the consulate the Turkish intelligence
service will have a legal outpost in the krai. Also opposed to the
consulate are the Cossacks and ethnic Armenians in the krai. The daily
speculates that with the opening of the consulate the conflicts
between the Meskhetians and the local Cossacks "could take
unprecedented forms." Meanwhile, no one in the krai's administration
has received any formal notification of the agreement between the
Russian and Turkish governments announced earlier about the opening of
the consulate, according to the daily. JAC


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