IN THIS ISSUE

* Medvedev’s constitutional coup permits use of force abroad
* Train derailment: a new tactic of the North Caucasus militants?
* Bakiyev regime targets human rights campaigners
** Visit the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Lukashenka Makes Key Leadership Changes in Belarus

Russia Removes Constitutional Constraints on Military Intervention Abroad

Pavel Felgenhauer

Last August, while celebrating the anniversary of the successful invasion of Georgia in August 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev introduced amendments to the 1996 Law on Defense aimed at allowing the use of Russian forces abroad “to defend Russian soldiers and citizens, fight piracy and defend foreign nations against threats.” Medvedev directly connected the legislation to the war with Georgia: “so that in the future these questions will be clearly regulated” (www.kremlin.ru, August 10). Medvedev, in effect, acknowledged that Russia did not have the legal right to invade Georgia in 2008, since its territorial integrity was not under threat and it did not have any defense treaties with South Ossetia or Abkhazia. The Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) did not vote to send troops into battle inside Georgia, as the constitution demands (Kommersant, August 11). Medvedev, a former lawyer, definitely believed that this legal problem must be straightened out.

By the end of last October the Duma (lower house of parliament) and the Federation Council successfully passed the draft and Medvedev signed the law last month, allowing the president to decide on the “operational use” of the Russian armed forces abroad, as well as the number of troops and weapons deployed. But the amended legislation still seemingly contained the constitutional provision requiring “a corresponding resolution” by the Federation Council to allow troops to actually go into action abroad (RIA Novosti, November 9). This week this constitutional provision was exposed as a legal hoax. Medvedev asked the Federation Council to pass an open-ended all-encompassing resolution that will allow him to send troops into action abroad anywhere, anytime; decide on the size of force, specify the enemy, with no legal restraints or limitations “to defend the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens” (www.kremlin.ru, December 8). The Federation Council, fully controlled by the Kremlin, enthusiastically announced it will pass the required resolution next week on December 16. Sources in the Kremlin told journalists that the Federation Council resolution will be a “universal decision and will in fact give the president ‘the general power of attorney’ to take independently and swiftly decisions to use the armed forces outside Russia’s borders” (Kommersant, December 9).

In effect this is a constitutional coup. The constitution was written and approved in 1993, when Russia was recovering from the devastating effects of almost ten years of invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that had cost tens of thousands of lives, vast amounts of resources and ended in defeat. The Afghan debacle was blamed on the secretive and frail Communist Politburo members that apparently informally took the decision to invade. In 1993 Russian society and the ruling class were fed up with foreign military adventure and envisioned strong restraints that could prevent any future repetition. Before authorizing the use of the armed forces abroad in each particular case, the Federation Council was required to discuss the situation and pass a resolution allowing or disallowing the use of force as well as troop deployment strength and duration of the mission (Vedomosti, December 9).

Now the tide of public opinion has changed. The chairman of the Federation Council defense and security committee Victor Ozerov told journalists that Russian troop deployment in international peacekeeping missions or other cases that are not “operational” will still go through the old procedure of case by case votes (Gazeta, December 9). But it will be the Kremlin, not parliament that will decide, on what is “operational deployment,” and which cases merit a vote.

In the 1990’s the Federation Council was an independent body, whose members were elected. The Federation Council often voted against the Kremlin. Now its members are appointed by provincial governors and legislatures in consultation with the Kremlin. The governors are in turn Kremlin-appointed, while the legislatures are totally dominated by the ruling United Russia party. In 2008 the Russian military under orders from Vladimir Putin and Medvedev were for months preparing to invade Georgia in August, but an official Federation Council resolution to legalize the attack was not passed beforehand or when the invasion began. This allowed Medvedev to speak about how he agonized before deciding to react to a sudden Georgian attack against Ossetian separatists by sending in troops during the night of August 8, 2008 (www.kremlin.ru, August 7, 2009). It so happened that minutes after Medvedev’s decision Russian tanks were already deep inside Georgia. An authorization beforehand by the Federation Council or an emergency session happening during the same agonizing night of August 8, 2008 would have made the narrative too fantastic. Now Medvedev has decided to streamline the process of authorizing future invasions of neighboring nations and prevent possible embarrassing lapses by sidelining the Federation Council entirely, despite it being only a rubber stamp chamber.

President Boris Yeltsin’s former legal aid Mikhail Krasnov and one of the principal authors of the constitution, Victor Sheinis, both announced that giving the Kremlin permanent legal rights to unilaterally use armed forces abroad “is absolutely unconstitutional” (Kommersant, December 9). But Putin and Medvedev have already turned the basically democratic 1993 constitution into an empty shell. Free and fair elections are non-existent in Russia, while the executive branch of government dominates and corrupts parliament and the legal system. Basic human rights and the freedom of the press are brutally suppressed. For the tens of thousands of Georgians that were ethnically cleansed, robbed, killed or raped as a result of the Russian invasion in August 2008, it makes no difference if the aggression was properly legally approved or not.

Train Bombing Part of North Caucasus Rebels’ Bid to Widen Insurgency

Mairbek Vatchagaev

A series of terrorist attacks on Russian railroads in November, including the bombing of the Nevsky Express, which killed 27 people, made many wonder who would take such bold actions in different parts of Russia. The incidents were officially characterized as terrorist attacks, which in itself is quite strange. When similar derailments have happened in the past, Moscow tried to downplay the possibility of terrorism by stating that technical failures were the probable cause (www.newsru.com, December 2).

From the very beginning there was the improbable story regarding the possibility that Russian nationalists were behind the Nevsky Express derailment. All references to the possible involvement of Russian nationalists did not hold up, given that tactics of that kind have long been used by the North Caucasian militants (www.vazhno.ru, December 4).

However, the attempted murder of the head of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Aleksandr Bastrykin, was left in the background. The day after the Nevsky Express train explosion, another blast went off at the site of the incident, where investigators from the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Investigative Committee were working. It was later determined that this second bomb had been a remote control device that was activated by a cellular phone. This led the investigators to believe that the second explosion at the site of the train wreck might have directly targeted the investigative team (www.vesti.ru, December 1). Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin confirmed that Bastrykin sought medical attention in connection with an injury received in the explosion. According to some sources, it was concussion. Two other high ranking officials –the head of the Moscow Regional Investigative Transport Agency, Sergei Zabaturin, and the head of the Novgorod District Investigative Agency, Konstantin Karasev– reportedly also suffered concussions and other injuries (RIA Novosti, December 3). Thus, one may argue that it was a well-planned operation and its organizers targeted the high-ranking officials after the first explosion.

Just a few days after the derailment of the Nevsky Express, an official statement by the leadership of the armed forces of the Caucasus Emirate appeared on the rebel Kavkaz-Center website. The statement included claims that the derailment had been implemented with the knowledge of the leader of the North Caucasus militants, Dokka Umarov (www.kavkazcenter.com, December 2). One could have looked at it as another propagandistic demarche by the militants, had there not been a similar bombing of the same train on August 13, 2007, after which the militants posted a video about preparations for the terrorist attack and the actual bombing of the train online.

Then, the militants’ Riyadus Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion officially claimed responsibility for the explosion (www.kavkaz.tv, October 9, 2007). The battalion was created by Shamil Basaev personally in order to undermine Russia’s interests outside of Chechnya. It seems that there is a fully-fledged combatants’ scheme, rather than isolated sallies to Russia. Maksharip Hidriev, a citizen of Ingushetia, was arrested and convicted in connection with the 2007 Nevsky Express bombing.

Commenting on the statement on last month’s bombing of the Nevsky Express, Chechen interior ministry representatives expressed doubts that Dokka Umarov had the capabilities to implement large-scale acts of terror either inside Chechnya or in other regions of Russia (www.chechnyatoday.com). There is nothing surprising in that statement. For months, Chechen police and armed forces, together with Russia’s FSB, have been trying to destroy the insurgent combat units along the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. Claiming that dozens of militants have been killed in those operations, the pro-Moscow authorities have been forced to present slain young people as killed militants. In reality, human rights activists have evidence that far from all of them had connections to the militants. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has also voiced doubts that the Chechen militants or their leader Dokka Umarov, were involved in the derailment (Interfax, December 2).

This time, however, there is ample evidence of the involvement of Chechen separatists, and the theory that the train derailment was organized by the militants has become the key to the investigation (www.gazeta.ru, December 2).

During a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that an attempted terrorist act on a railway in Dagestan was similar to the Nevsky Express derailment (www.grani.ru, December 1). Putin was referring to an explosion at the Izberbash-Inchh wayside station on the Mahachkala branch of the North Caucasus railroad, when passenger train 374 from Tyumen to Baku was derailed. Vladimir Markin reported that a criminal case had been launched regarding that incident and that those responsible would be charged with organizing a terrorist attack (www.dagestan.kavkaz-uzel.ru, December 1).

Meanwhile, in southern Russia, Dagestan’s Prime Minister Shamil Zainalov, had a meeting with his subordinates on the issue of railroad security in the republic (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, December 2). A report on the railroad transport situation was prepared by Ashahan Magomedov, the Dagestani interior ministry official in charge of transportation security. According to him, there have been seven explosions on trains in Dagestan since July. “Almost all the explosions were implemented in the same manner: they were liquid explosives with identical components,” said Magomedov. He also talked about measures undertaken by the transport police together with railway officials aimed at preventing railway bombings. One may assume that the Dagestani militants for the most part target railroads running through Makhachkala and Derbent (www.riadagestan.ru, December 1).

Radio Liberty’s Andrei Babitsky believes that the blasts were not isolated actions, but rather part of the tactics of military resistance. He suspects that Dokka Umarov has brought the war to central Russia and that this conflict will last much longer than those during the period of Shamil Basaev’s activities (www.watchdog.cz, December 3). Putin’s statements on the situation in the North Caucasus during his annual televised call-in program on December 3 were contradictory. At first, he said that there is not even “a hint of war in the North Caucasus.” But then he stated that “the complex situation in the region could be explained by the operation of illegal armed formations, which at times feel themselves invulnerable.” Putin promised to fight them mercilessly until they are wiped out (Ekho Moskvy, December 3).

It is difficult to talk about success of the Russia’s siloviki today. The North Caucasus armed resistance has spread not only all over the region, but also to other parts of Russia. It seems that this might prove the main incentive for Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012.

Kyrgyz Authorities Deny Entry to Human Rights Activists

Erica Marat

The number of human rights activists who have been denied entry to Kyrgyzstan has spiked this year. On December 2, Tajikistan’s prominent human rights activist Nagina Bakhriyeva was denied entry to the country upon her arrival from Dushanbe to Bishkek’s Manas airport (www.24.kg, December 2). Earlier this year, two Russian activists from Memorial human rights group were similarly denied access to Kyrgyzstan. At least one western human rights activist has been banned from entering the country in the past two years.

Bakhriyeva’s case raised widespread concerns among Kyrgyzstan’s human rights activists and NGO’s. Many saw a direct link between Bakhriyeva’s ban on entering the country with her September training of Kyrgyz lawyers on how to handle religious rights abuses and report violations to international organizations. Bakhriyev’s work with Kyrgyz lawyers followed Kyrgyz authorities’ harsh suppression of residents in the southern city Nookat in October 2008 who protested against the government banning the celebration of an Islamic holiday (www.hrw.org, December 3).

“Instead of trying to jointly study and solve the problem of human rights… law enforcement structures continue making new mistakes,” according to an NGO joint statement (www.centrasia.ru, December 7). Ironically, Bakhriyeva is known in Tajikistan for her long standing constructive collaboration with the Tajik government in the realm of human rights.

Before deporting Bakhriyeva, Kyrgyz customs officials insisted that she refrained from publicizing problems at the border in return for allowing her future entry to Kyrgyzstan (www.ferghana.ru, December 3). After detaining her for two hours, Kyrgyz authorities deported the human rights activist without providing any official explanation for the deportation. Similar scenarios have also been experienced by previously deported activists. Bakhriyeva and other deported foreigners will not be able to visit Kyrgyzstan during a ten-year period.

“It is likely that decisions on who is to be denied entry into the country are made on a ministerial level”, one Kyrgyz politician told Jamestown (December 5). Since the presidential elections last July the decision-making process has been split between two major government figures. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s son Maksim reportedly oversees the economic sector and cadre politics as he heads the newly-formed Central Agency on Development, Investment, and Innovation. While the president’s brother Zhanysh Bakiyev serves as the head of the National Security Service and has strong leverage over security structures as well as being able to make decisions on how Kyrgyz customs are managed.

“Both camps can function independently of one another,” the politician explained. The decision on refusing entry to certain individuals is taken by security structures without the participation of other government institutions. Neither Maksim nor Zhanysh Bakiyev seems to prioritize the country’s democratic development; instead they focus on defending and expanding their spheres of interest as part of an ongoing process. Experts expect more significant cadre changes in the government and foreign service in the coming months, reportedly masterminded by Maksim. Rumors in Bishkek also indicate that Zhanysh might form his own political party to foster his power.

Meanwhile, a number of NGO leaders, journalists and politicians who fled Kyrgyzstan under the Bakiyev regime are unable to return to the country. Although Kyrgyz Ombudsman Tursunbek Akun has promised to investigate Bakhriyev’s case, he has not been successful in any previous investigation into the cases of banned human rights activists.

Today Kyrgyzstan is left without virtually any active political opposition. Several prominent opposition leaders have been effectively silenced, either through arrests or public shaming. As one member of the Kyrgyz parliament (MP) says, it is only possible to show opposition to the regime if you are part of the ruling Ak Zhol party. Having access to the party leaders and Maksim, Ak Zhol members can discuss their ideas and viewpoints. Ak Zhol members are also able to extend the party’s outreach using personal authority. “But those outside of Ak Zhol are destined to run behind the train,” the MP observed.

The incident with Bakhriyeva marks a worsening of Kyrgyzstan’s democratic record. Aside from tighter regulations on entry, this year has witnessed several contract killings of politicians, beatings and intimidation of journalists and NGO activists. NGO’s dealing with religious issues are closely monitored by the government. According to Human Rights Watch, the Kyrgyz government is pressuring individuals engaged specifically in investigating abuses of religious rights in southern Kyrgyzstan.

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