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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Dagestan spiraling out of control |
| 2005-10-28 |
| In 1999, the Islamic Republic of Dagestan was declared. Nowadays, the capital of the province is under a virtual state of siege. Torture is rampant and fundamentalists are gaining ever more control. Meanwhile, the Russian government is collapsing under a mountain of corruption. It is 169 kilometers (105 miles) along highway M 29 from Grozny to Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea. In the past, the drive from Chechnya to Dagestan, the "Land of Mountains," promised a return to safer ground. That has changed. Dagestan, Russia's largest Caucasus republic and, with its 30 ethnic groups, a Eurasian Babylon, threatens to "spin out of control and fall apart." This is the conclusion reached in a report Dmitry Kozak, the presidential envoy to the south federal district, submitted to President Putin in June. The report clearly specifies the reasons for the catastrophic scenario: rampant corruption, a widening gap between the elites and the impoverished people and the fact that militant Islamists are taking advantage of the resulting vacuum to expand their influence over the religious and political life of the republic. The report is especially relevant to a man who lives on Gagarin Street in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. Siradjin Ramazanov was once officially Dagestan's highest-ranking Islamist. A thick steel door opens slightly, revealing a small man in shorts, his hands as big as shovels, his three children standing behind him. He serves tea with honey. In 1999, Shamil Basayev proclaimed the foundation of the "Islamic Republic of Dagestan" and installed Ramazanov as its prime minister. At the time, entire villages lived by Sharia law, the aim being to establish an Islamic caliphate. When Basayev invaded Dagestan with his supporters, he encountered strong resistance among the population. His move also triggered the second Russian campaign against Chechnya and the enactment of an anti-Wahhabism law for Dagestan. The republic's religious fanatics have been living in hiding ever since. In 2004, Ramazanov returned from five years in exile and called upon Dagestanis fighting the Russian army to lay down their arms. In return, a Dagestani court, in an uncharacteristic display of leniency, freed Ramezanov but barred him from leaving the region. Since then, Dagestan's former top separatist reports to work each morning in his position as a construction engineer for a natural gas company. Although he claims to have no knowledge of their activities, Ramezanov's former fellow separatists are busily destroying the republic. Since the beginning of the year, at least one police officer is shot or blown up each week. In early September, the radical underground organization Sharia Jamaat proclaimed itself the "legitimate power" in Dagestan and called upon the country's Muslims to renounce the "laws of the infidels." The interior minister has spoken of a list of 30 terrorists who, should they be captured, he doesn't want to see alive. Fear has taken hold in Makhachkala. Militia guards are stationed on practically every street corner, and checkpoints have been set up on all roads leading into the city. Makhachkala is under a state of siege, and yet the enemy remains invisible. But the target of the attacks is made abundantly clear. Civilians have become terrified of the police and when driving, have developed the habit of passing police cars at breakneck speed. The torture chambers maintained by Dagestan's police force are well-known throughout Russia. Attorneys say that they include the application of electroshocks to the tongue, the raping of young men and a method known as "little elephant," in which a gas mask is placed over a prisoner's face and the flow of air cut off periodically. When things get a little out of hand at the headquarters of the militia's 6th division on Aliyev Street in Makhachkala, and the screams of the tortured can be heard outside, the neighbors complain. Sayid Amirov, known as "the bloody Roosevelt," sits in his office in the Makhachkala city hall. After 15 attempts on his life, the mayor now governs the city from a wheelchair. Amirov is an elegant, silver-haired gentleman who readily concedes that the screams of the tortured on Aliyev Street did present a problem, but then adds that it has since been resolved. Amirov prefers to talk about something else, namely his goal of creating a "Dagestani CÃŽte d'Azur." He shows brochures that describe how 300 hectares (750 acres) of barren land on the waterfront could become a banner project, drawing tourists instead of fundamentalists to the Caspian Sea. Whether the mayor will be around to realize his dream remains open. Despite his alleged corruption affairs, recently summarized in a full-page article in Novaya gaseta, Amirov plans to campaign to succeed the republic's aging leader, Magomedali Magomedov. The possibility that Russia could break apart, because corruption is consuming the government, opening gaps that are quickly filled by traveling clerics from Arab Koran schools inciting their followers to violence, is even felt in Russia's southernmost city, Derbent. The city, 52 kilometers (32 miles) from the border with Azerbaijan, was long considered a shining example of tolerance and respectful coexistence on Russian soil. The first Christian missionaries passed through Derbent, the "Iron Gate" on the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia, only 10 years after the death of Jesus. Jews have lived here and in the nearby mountains since time immemorial and, numbering 8,500 believers, they still represent Russia's third-largest Jewish community today. The city's Muslims, for their part, proudly point out that their mosque was built in 773 and, as a Friday mosque, to this day remains the spiritual focal point in the home of the northern Caucasian Sufis. This history makes it all the more unpleasant for Sheikh Hurikski that in April 200 of his followers, using stones, sticks and their bare hands, had to destroy the oldest mosque on Russian soil, allegedly to fight Wahhabites. But the spiritual leader of southern Dagestan swears, squatting on the ground and surrounded by his pupils, that destroying the mosque was necessary to preserve peace. "Wahhabism is a social plague. Without sheikhs like myself, we would have descended into war long ago." Meanwhile, Dagestan's political elite are requesting audiences with leading sheikhs, and Sheikh Hurikski's admirers stand in line for the privilege of washing his feet. The warnings of Putin's envoy, Kozak -- that Dagestan and, along with it, the Russian Federation, is on the brink of collapse -- could hardly be illustrated more symbolically. Putin, for his part, decided to pay the Caspian Sea region a surprise visit in July. He visited the domestic security agency's new fortress north of Makhachkala, the well-fortified barracks housing border guards at the border with Azerbaijan and, finally, the fortress of the city of Derbent, whose original structure dates to pre-Roman times. Putin's helicopter landed directly on the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the president stayed all of 45 minutes. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |