Russia's 'purge' of Chechens

A police directive that circulated among human rights organizations last week revealed details about these actions, called "total checks" by the police. Civil society in Russia is gravely threatened by these crudely totalitarian practices.

For years, Russians have silently accepted special camps for interrogation and torture and mass disappeareances in Chechnya. Now thousands of legally registered citizens in Russian cities are subject to surveillance operations reminiscent of fascist Germany or the worst years of the Stalin era.

In a massive round-up, officers hauled thousands into police stations to be fingerprinted and to present dozens of documents on such matters as car and telephone ownership and bank accounts. Police and unidentified agents went door to door and collected testimonies from citizens about their Caucasian neighbors' lives and asked detailed questions about relatives living or having perished in Chechnya.

On Feb. 27 and March 3, mass detentions of dozens of Muslims attending prayers at Moscow's Historical and Memorial Mosques were carried out by troops waiting in trucks near the buildings. These raids were part of Whirlwind Anti-Terror, implemented by the Interior Ministry's special Organized Crime Branch.

Police officials initially denied that the incidents, termed prophylactic "passport checks," had any special religious or national character, but Moscow boss of public order Nikolai Pershutkin stated that as a result, people were detained who were "if not literally tied to acts of terror, ideologically prepared for them."

The raids, quickly dubbed "Moscow purges" by the Russian media, were strongly condemned by Moscow religious leaders as "hostile acts against Muslims," carried out rudely and unprofessionally, and leading to the discrediting of law enforcement organs in the eyes of Muslims.

Commonplace in the Caucasus, such raids in the center of Moscow are unprecedented. They offer little protection against terrorist threats but are acceptable to the Russian public as a sign that something is happening to prevent new attacks. They are possible because civil society is in ruins and offers no defenses against xenophobic stereotypes.

Ordinary Russians are increasingly receptive to the concept of the Chechens as an "ethnic criminal community." Sixty years after the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people to Kazakhstan by Stalin in 1944, many Russians believe (again) that it was justified as having been in the interests of Russian national security, because of the revival of allegations that the Chechens fought on the side of the Germans during World War II.

The 60th anniversary of the deportation was widely observed in Europe (if barely noticed in America), but few Russians are aware of the genocidal disaster the deportation turned out to be for the Chechens. They experienced a death rate of 25-30 percent in exile, the highest of any of the nations deported under Stalin. The anniversary was largely suppressed in Russia or used to revive older concepts of the Chechens as historical enemies.

War and terror are painfully present in the center of Moscow, and Chechen-style sham presidential elections are about to be repeated in all of Russia today. The regime needs to demonstrate total control, and the Chechens, accused as a nation, move about streets and public transport as targets of aggressive checks and mass arrests.

Where is Russia headed after the election? Total surveillance operations are exceedingly profitable and give those who implement them every reason to be zealous. Law enforcement increasingly relies on the solicitation of denunciations and justifies detentions based on totalitarian concepts like "ideological preparedness."

This trend is extremely dangerous to the future of Russia as a multi-national and multi-confessional society. America must end the silence to which it has abandoned the Chechens and Russians. Americans ought to join Europeans in asking their governments to stop ignoring this ongoing crisis. They must demand answers from the Russian president, and increase international pressure to end violence and disappearances in Chechnya and human rights violations in Russia.

Zaindi Choltaev represents the Moscow-based "Foundation for Democracy and Social Progress." Michaela Pohl teaches history at Vassar College.