Russia 111117 Basic Political Developments

A killer does not change his style

http://rt.com/politics/press/rossijskaya-gazeta/killer-murder-akhtakhanov-chechen/en/
Published: 17 November, 2011, 08:40
Edited: 17 November, 2011, 08:47
Vladimir Bogdanov

Famous Chechen poet and community leader, and Deputy Provost of the Modern Humanities Academy Ruslan Akhtakhanov, was killed late Tuesday night. His body, with several gunshot wounds, was discovered near his home on Begovaya Street.

Investigation Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Rossiyskaya Gazeta (RG) that, based on the official version, Akhtakhanov’s murder is being treated as a contract killing.

“The killer shot the victim in the leg and the head. This method of murder, when, after wounding the victim, the killer fires another ‘confirmation shot’ into the head, is typical of a contract killing. A criminal case has been filed under two articles of the Criminal Code – murder and illegal arms trafficking,” said Markin.

According to Markin, the murder was committed with great audacity, in a well-lit area of the street, immediately next to the Third Transport Ring. Officially, the victim was registered in Lytkarino, outside of Moscow.

After the attack, the killer got into a Ford Focus, where he was awaited by his accomplice, and fled. The vehicle was found burnt out on Kanatchikov Lane, in the south of Moscow. The fire was so intense that it needed to be extinguished with special foam.

Inside the car, investigators recovered the alleged murder weapon – an Izh-71 traumatic pistol with a silencer, converted into a combat pistol. Later, medical experts discovered five gunshot wounds on Akhtakhanov’s body.

The fact that the murder was carefully premeditated is also supported by the evidence that the poet was shot in a “blind zone”: an area near the building that is not under video surveillance.

[RG’s] law enforcement source does not exclude the possibility that Akhtakhanov’s murder was ordered by members of the North Caucasian criminal underground. He is known to have been captured and held hostage for 47 days during a counterterrorism operation in Chechnya.

Akhtakhanov was an avid advocate of keeping the Chechen Republic an integral part of Russia and a supporter of not only religious, but also secular development of the republic. This dissatisfied Chechnya’s radical criminal gangs. Some media sources reported that Akhtakhanov could have been murdered out of personal revenge. But operatives have not been able to confirm this version.

Investigators are not excluding the possibility that the same individuals responsible for organizing the killing of Col. Yury Budanov were involved in the murder of the Chechen poet. The signature style of Akhtakhanov’s killers closely resembles that of Budanov’s assassins: the attack took place on a well-lit busy street, the victim sustained several gunshots, including into the head.

The manner in which the criminals fled the scene, subsequently destroying the vehicle, is also similar. In both cases, the same type of murder weapon was used, and the license plates on the getaway cars had been earlier stolen from vehicles of the same brand.

According to our source from the Investigation Committee, this possibility is currently being actively pursued by the investigators.

Yesterday, an airplane carrying Ruslan Akhtakhanov’s body departed for Chechnya. According to the Muslim tradition, he was buried in his home town – in the Cossack village of Znamenskaya, located in the republic’s Nadterechny District.

Dossier

Akhtakhanov was a prominent cultural figure and member of the Writers’ Union of Russia. He was the deputy provost and general director of development at the Modern Humanities Academy. Akhtakhanov was an honorary worker of higher professional education of Russia. He became member of the Writers’ Union in 2009, after the publication of the poetry collection “I’m proud of Chechnya, which gave the world heroes”. By that time, he had written and published seven books. In November 2009, Akhtakhanov received the Artyom Borovik Prize for his firm internationalist position in life and work.

The North Caucasus

http://www.news.az/articles/politics/48874
Thu 17 November 2011 05:03 GMT | 6:03 Local Time

by Cem Oguz, head of the Turkish Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the second half of the 1990’s, it had already become obvious that ethnicity wouldn’t be the trigger for the disintegration of the Russian Federation. The Chechen case excluded, the separatist and nationalist trends in Russia, assumed to be leading to the fragmentation of the federal structure, gradually lost much of their momentum.

The basic reason behind this astonishing evolution is the fact that eventually ethnic republics’ push for more sovereignty began to revolve around economic considerations. Their ambitious national aspirations served as a useful tool in an ongoing bargaining game over more economic concessions, such as lower taxes or higher federal subsidies. Once achieved through bilateral treaties, the content of which varied from one ethnic republic or region to the other, their main concern has become to maintain their relatively privileged status, particularly vis-a-vis Vladimir Putin’s attempts at creating a more centralized government, universal economic system, as well as set of fiscal rules.

Accordingly, their living standards have drastically increased, minimizing the risk of potential unrest. By 1999, for instance, the per capita incomes of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan or Sakha were above the national average. Additionally, due to the Soviet legacy of heavy central planning, once-secessionist republics such as Tatarstan has become economically integrated with the federal government and many regions, because at present their industry is fully dependant on the supply of raw materials or industrial products from other parts of Russia. 

While in most parts of Russia separatism has been replaced gradually by economic regionalism, the situation in the North Caucasus was completely different. The inevitable result of political and social instability in the North Caucasus, intensified by economic stagnation, has been a severe blow to regional economies, with serious political repercussions among the ordinary people. Living standards worsened dramatically, while income inequality with other regions of Russia frequently increased. Unemployment became a serious problem. In Dagestan, for instance, the unemployment rate was only 1.57 percent in 1992, but at present it is estimated to have reached almost 80 percent.

In terms of industrial output and gross domestic product (GDP), the North Caucasus is classified as one of the least developed regions within the Russian Federation. The North Caucasian republics are at the top of Russia’s regions in terms of the level of federal subsidies they receive from Moscow. Thus, economic integration with the federal government in the North Caucasus amounts to fragile dependency on Moscow, even in terms of basic goods. These desperate economic conditions led to the increasing role of foreign influence. For instance, even though the numbers of Wahhabis is insignificant, their influence on the political process in the region, in Dagestan in particular, has been growing in importance.        

Rather than ideological or ethnic issues, the most destabilizing factor in the region was the territorial disputes as a consequence of deportations of four of the North Caucasian nationalities during 1943-44 (namely, the Chechen, Ingush, Karachay and Balkars). Deportations have created a rift between repressed and non-repressed peoples and were anchored in the emotional consequences. The Chechens, for instance, did not forgive the “occupation” of Khasavyurt, a region which following the deportation of the Chechens in February 1944 was annexed to Dagestan. A similar attitude is to be seen among the Karachay and Balkar deportees towards their Muslim neighbors the Kabardians and Circassians (Cherkes) who, after their deportation, were resettled on their ancestral lands.

The boundaries drawn arbitrarily by the Stalinist regime have been the most crucial factor precluding negotiated adjustments in the post-Soviet era, since territorial units were broken up in such a way as to ensure the improbability of their resurrection in their original form. More importantly, socio-economic tensions emanating from conflicts about the distribution of power and economic resources between the neighboring peoples, which were particularly acute in Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan, has made the situation more complex.

Indeed, the prospects for instability have lost momentum, but this does not at all mean that they have been completely eliminated. Instead, there are frozen disputes or conflicts. The situation in the North Caucasus will continue to be the most turbulent issue during Putin’s next term in office.

C. Cem Oguz [e-mail]