MINELRES: Caucasus Reporting Service: Moscow Skinheads Target Southerners

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WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 127, May, 2002.

CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE MAY 2

CASPIAN TALKS BREAKDOWN BODES ILL An attempt by Caspian Sea states to
divide up its riches appears only to have deepened the quarrel over
the issue. By David Stern in Ashgabat

BAD BUSINESS DAYS IN BAKU Several foreign companies in Azerbaijan have
decided that it's not worth waiting for the next oil boom. By Khazar
Akhundov and Leila Amirova in Baku

MOSCOW SKINHEADS TARGET SOUTHERNERS Suspicions are growing that
attacks by groups of Moscow skinheads on Caucasian traders are being
carefully orchestrated. By Sanobar Shermatova in Moscow

DEATH OF A WARLORD A brief encounter with Khattab, an Islamist
warlord, now reported dead in Chechnya. By Thomas de Waal in London

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MOSCOW SKINHEADS TARGET SOUTHERNERS

Suspicions are growing that attacks by groups of Moscow skinheads on
Caucasian traders are being carefully orchestrated

By Sanobar Shermatova in Moscow

Skinhead groups have recently stepped up a campaign of violence in
Moscow that may be linked to a push to drive Caucasian traders out of
the city's markets.

No accurate statistics on the skinhead attacks are available as the
police usually suggest domestic violence or gangland revenge was the
cause. According to a Chechen student in Moscow, the families of
Chechen victims of the attacks never contact the police, as they fear
they will only side with the assailants. "The police would rather take
the side of the skinheads who are Russian than protect Chechens, whom
they consider undesirable aliens," he told IWPR.

The wave of violence can be linked to rising antagonism against
migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia - which is largely a
consequence of two factors.

Firstly, many Muscovites believe they are behind much of the crime in
the city, a perception fuelled by the tendency of television news to
cite the nationality of criminals. Secondly, the government's
"counter-terrorist operation" in Chechnya has been accompanied by
intensive propaganda directed against Chechens and all Caucasian
ethnic groups.

A recent Internet poll conducted by the weekly Moscow News found that
only 4.3 per cent of Muscovites would try to stop skinheads attacking
someone. Another 58 per cent said they would simply ignore such
incidents, while 37 per cent would run away.

The latest high-profile victim of skinhead violence was a Russian
citizen of Afghan origin, Abdul Haqim Haqrisi, who was beaten to death
in central Moscow last month by a group of skinheads. Haqrisi, 35,  a
father of four, worked as a translator for the Federal Migration
Service.

The Afghan embassy protested to the Russian foreign ministry over the
murder, but a few days later several embassies in Moscow received
threatening emails in English from local skinheads, promising more
murders of foreign nationals on or around Hitler's birthday on April
20.

Police went on high alert on April 19. For three days most of the
capital's police were concentrated in the downtown area, with explicit
instructions to suppress skinhead activity. Thanks to these
extraordinary measures, no attacks occurred over this period.

Traders at one small outdoor market at Chertanovskaya Street in
southern Moscow marked Hitler's birthday in their own way. On April 20
they closed the market, allegedly for cleaning, though there was no
visible evidence of this. A trader explained that this and other
markets in the area had shut because of the skinhead threat. "The
market had to be closed because there are no police to guard it. They
are all in the centre of town," she said.

The outdoor markets, with their enormous cash flows, offer prime
targets for the skinhead groups. Last April and October, they attacked
the markets at Tsaritsino and Yasenevo in southern Moscow. Four people
died in the first incident and two in the second. Dozens were injured
in both.

The largest group of traders at the outdoor markets are from the
Caucasus, selling produce at what locals perceive as exorbitant
prices. Since the Soviet era "southerners", usually Azerbaijanis, have
had a virtual monopoly on bringing fruit, vegetables and flowers from
their homeland to Moscow.

About two million Azerbaijanis live in Russia, and most are engaged in
small-time trading. On average, an Azerbaijani expatriate sends 100 to
350 US dollars monthly to his family back home.

Azerbaijanis, Chechens and Dagestanis also sell products from Central
Asia. Since Uzbek tomatoes and pomegranates are far pricier than
similar Turkish produce, only affluent Muscovites can afford them.
Uzbekistan has recently started shipping honey melons to Moscow, but
the Uzbeks themselves have been unable to secure a strong presence in
the market trading sector.

The hierarchy at the markets fuels Russian resentment. At Chertanovo
in the south of Moscow, foreign traders rank higher than local Russian
"babushkas" (old ladies) selling greens, homemade jam and sauerkraut.
A local trader selling fresh parsley and dill recently had to move
into the street. "I cannot afford to pay the owner as much as they
do," she complained, waving at the Asian traders.

On his rare visits to the market, its Azerbaijani owner is accompanied
by three bodyguards. All traders pay him kickbacks on top of the
regular fee required by law. They do everything they can to keep local
competition out of the market, because locals offer the same
merchandise far cheaper.

Police are frequently seen driving babushkas from the market and
nearby streets. The old women then have to bribe the police to stay in
business, and increase the price of their produce accordingly. This
takes care of the "price competition", and plays into the hands of the
Asian traders. Ordinary Moscow families, spending 200 or 250 US
dollars a month on food, see the Georgian, Uzbek and Tajik traders as
scam artists who keep their prices artificially high by cutting out
the local traders.

Who is standing behind the skinheads? One theory has it that criminal
groups use the young men to do battle with their rivals on their
behalf. Another version holds that the police manipulate skinhead
activity to keep the traders under control. The police have been
raiding outdoor markets in Moscow for two years in a bid to squeeze
out traders from the Caucasus. It has not worked, as they have no
legal grounds to ban traders from former Soviet Republics or the North
Caucasus.

But the skinheads also have an agenda of their own. The historian
Semyon Charny, in a study of their movement published recently in
Moscow News, points out that in the Soviet Union their origins date
back to the 1950s. Charny believes the authorities and the KGB were
inactive in cracking down on the skinheads because they wanted to use
them to scare the Russian population.

Nowadays skinheads are active throughout Russia. "Our aim is power,"
one of their leaders, Alexander Ivanov-Sukharevsky, told Moscow News.
"Hitler's idea was to liberate Russia from Jewish oppression and put
the Romanovs back on the throne, but God did not let Hitler achieve
this at that juncture. Our mission is to continue the cause of
liberating the Russian people from that oppression."

In the meantime, ethnic Russians traders have been gaining more
control of the markets. It is certainly in their interest to clear
them of "aliens" by whatever means. The idea that shadowy business
groups are behind the phenomenon of skinhead groups may not be
far-fetched.

Sanobar Shermatova is a correspondent with Moscow News.

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