Window on Eurasia: Russian Nationalist Skinheads Attack Mari Cultural Figures

31.05.05

Tartu, May 31 - Less than a month after the European Parliament condemned the Mari El authorities for human rights abuses, a group of 30 Russian skinheads shouted racist epithets at and then beat up 15 leading Mari cultural figures Friday night in that Middle Volga republic's capital city of Yoshkar-Ola (http://www.mari.ee, May 29-30).

Mari opposition groups say that several of the skinheads involved had told them that Mari El officials had asked the notorious Russian National Unity (RNE) organization to carry out the attacks and promised them both immunity and rewards for doing so (Press release from the Information Center of Finno-Ugric Peoples, May 31).

According to the Mari opposition, the skinheads -- who number some 2,000 in Yoshkar-Ola alone according to "Izvestiyia Mari El" in its April 20-26 issue, added Markelov's right-hand man, Andrei Tsaregorodtsev, had promised to give the RNE a plot of land on which the group could organize a base for its future activities.

But republic President Leonid Markelov has denied that he or his government had had anything to do with the attacks and promised a thorough investigation to identify the "persons unknown" who had beaten the Mari figures, some of whom his office said were government employees (http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/pres/2005/3005_1.html .

Markelov's denial, however, is not entirely credible. On the one hand, he has repeatedly denied any responsibility for similar attacks in the past but failed to bring their perpetrators to justice, and he has long had close ties to Russian nationalist extremists, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party.

And on the other, Markelov has routinely attacked the Mari opposition in terms that recall those used against dissidents in Soviet times. Less than 72 hours after the latest beatings, Markelov arranged a declaration by local officials against them and their foreign supporters (http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/life/2005/3005_1.html).

That hastily prepared declaration, passed not by the parliament as a whole but signed only by four of the five faction heads within it, went significantly beyond what the Russian Foreign Ministry had said on May 20. At that time, the Russian MFA simply suggested that the European Parliament's action was based on misinformation.

Yesterday's declaration by the Mari El parliament leaders, however, condemned that international action in the broadest possible terms, arguing that it represented "a crude interference in the economic, social-political and cultural life" of the Republic of Mari El.

It said that such criticism of the Mari El government reflected the joint efforts of a small group of Maris without support at home who are prepared to cooperate with those "international forces" who seek to spark ethnic tensions there to distract attention from "the violation of the rights of Russian speakers in the Baltic countries."

And it concluded with a ringing assertion that both the actions of the Mari opposition and those of its international supporters in the European Parliament or elsewhere "are condemned to fail regardless of their source."

Given the international attention that the European Parliament's action of May 12 attracted to the situation in Mari El, this latest round of beatings and statements almost certainly raises the stakes for all involved -- the Mari opposition, Markelov himself, and the international community as well.

For the opposition, this latest round of beatings and the parliamentary declaration are clear signals that Markelov has no plans to back off from his approach and that if anything he plans to increase the level of repression that he has visited upon the Republic of Mari El since becoming president there in 2000.

For Markelov, these events represent a turning point. If he gets away with them, he will probably be able to crush any opposition to himself for sometime to come. But if Moscow decides that he has gone too far and that his actions are causing trouble for Russian foreign policy, then Markelov might find himself out in the cold.

And for the international community, these beatings and the parliamentary declaration also represent a test. If the European Parliament and other groups concerned with human rights decide that they have done all they can in a small republic far away, then Markelov will probably be able to claim a victory.

But if they view his actions and those of the most notorious skinheads as threats to democracy and the rule of law not only in Mari El but in the Russian Federation as a whole, then such international groups and organizations will have to consider what they might do in response to change that situation.

As Markelov and his supporters in Moscow understand, the international community does not have that a large number of good options. But that many in that community have bitter memories about what can happen when it fails to take action against those who are prepared to use fascist groups to intimidate their opponents.

Paul Goble