Month: February 2015

CENTRAL ASIANS LEAVING RUSSIA: FLOOD OR TRICKLE?

EurasiaNet.org
Feb 9 2015

February 8, 2015 – 11:55pm, by David Trilling

It’s February, so Muscovites are grumbling about their city’s slippery
sidewalks. The complaint isn’t unusual in winter, but this year many
say they know why everything is covered in ice: The “Tajiks” have left.

Russian media report that the collapse of the ruble and strict new
rules for migrant laborers have encouraged an exodus of Central
Asians. But preliminary numbers are far smaller than many Muscovites
believe. Besides, new government hurdles can be overcome with a bribe.

The startling number often reported and repeated is 70 percent
fewer labor migrants than last year. It dates back to January 7,
from comments by the head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS),
Konstantin Romodanovsky, who cited it as the decrease in arriving
migrants year on year. But the comparison is of dubious statistical
value, referring only to the first week of 2015, which falls amid
Russia’s protracted winter holidays, and also happened to be the
first week that the stringent new rules were in place. Nonetheless,
even migrants quote the figure when asked for estimates of how many
of their compatriots have chosen to leave.

Last week FMS offered more detailed figures. In January, compared
with a year earlier, the number of Uzbek citizens in Russia fell
4.3 percent and Tajik citizens by 2.2 percent, according to the RBK
business-news website. Yet the number of Kyrgyzstanis had grown by
3.8 percent. (Numbers showing departures in the second half of the
year are misleading, as traditionally many migrants leave Russia each
winter when seasonal work dries up.)

No doubt, economic factors are pushing Central Asians to weigh the
benefits of staying in Russia. The country’s economy is expected to
contract 4.8 percent this year, according to the EBRD. In the last
12 months, the ruble has already fallen 50 percent, slashing real
wages and the money migrants send home.

In a covered market in Moscow’s Khamovniki District, a
dried-fruit-and-nut seller from northern Tajikistan estimates his
profit margins have shrunk 30 percent since last summer, even though
he has upped his prices in rubles by 40 percent over the same period.

For now, like many others, he plans to keep trying his luck in Russia.

If the ruble falls below 80 to the dollar – it has fallen from 33 to 67
in the last year – he will seriously consider leaving, he said. If it
hits 100, he will definitely leave, and “eat bread instead of bread
and butter.”

He thinks the overwhelming majority of migrants leaving Russia are
laborers unable to find work or break even living in the expensive
Russian capital. Traders such as himself enjoy a bigger cushion
because they started with such huge markups, he explains.

New Russian regulations are also making migrants weigh their options.

Since New Year’s Day, foreign workers have been required to take
Russian language and history tests, and sign up for health insurance.

They must also pay three times more than before for Moscow work
permits. Some media have reported days-long lines and inefficient
bureaucracies at processing centers.

Two Tajikistanis, speaking separately, claimed it is easier to pay a
bribe. Both said the going rate for the necessary papers, including
proof of passing the tests, was approximately 16,000-22,000 rubles
($239-$329). But even after that payout – equivalent to two to four
weeks’ wages for many – migrants still must pay 4,000 per month for
a Moscow work permit.

Confusion about the new rules abounds. Two middle-aged Uzbekistani
janitors who have worked in the Russian capital for years insisted
they do not need to take the exams because they were born before 1991.

But FMS regulations require the exam for everyone from outside the
new Eurasian Economic Union.

Also under rules adopted on January 1, citizens of Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan may only travel to Russia on international passports.

Kyrgyzstanis, another large migrant community, can continue using
their national ID cards, however, because their country is scheduled
to join the Russia-led EEU in May.

In fact, statistics suggest the EEU is encouraging migration to
Russia. According to the FMS figures, the number of Armenian nationals
in Russia grew 10.2 percent; Belarusians are up 32.6 percent; Kazakhs
4.5 percent. (Armenia joined the EEU on January 2; Kazakhstan and
Belarus, along with Russia, were founding members.)

Migrant-rights activists say it is too early to make conclusions, but
some expect the floundering economy and new regulations to encourage
20-25 percent of migrants to leave. The true test will be in the
spring, when Central Asian workers traditionally flock to Russia to
find work in construction, an industry that seems certain to be hurt
by Russia’s fast-shrinking economy.

The real scale of the changes in migrant figures – just like the
real numbers of Central Asian migrants in Russia overall – is hard to
gauge. Some agencies count apples, some count oranges, and it is not
clear if anyone’s numbers take into account Central Asians traveling
on Russian passports, of which there are plenty. (In absolute terms,
estimates of Uzbek nationals, for example, vary from 2.5 million to 5
million. Estimates of Kyrgyz and Tajik citizens tend to hover around
a million each.)

Despite the new challenges, several Central Asians working in Moscow
argued that they have little choice but to stay because there are
few jobs at home.

The fruit-and-nut seller from northern Tajikistan expects a large
number of his compatriots to continue trying their luck in Russia.

“There are no jobs” in Tajikistan, he said. “If people all go home,
they’ll be stealing from each other. They’ll have to come back. If
they don’t, there will be another civil war.”

WHEN ARE ATROCITIES NOT CONSIDERED GENOCIDE? UN SAYS INTENT AND NUMBER OF VICTIMS ARE KEY FACTORS

The National Post, Canada
Feb 9 2015

In its recent ruling neither Croatia or Serbia committed genocide, the
UN’s highest court showed how high the bar is set to prove genocide.

Intent is an important factor, as well as the numbers killed, The
Post’s Steven Gelis reports:

What’s the definition of genocide?

The UN’s convention says it must be “committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

This was not proved in either Serbia or Croatia in the war that led
to the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the International Court
of Justice said. “[While] there is evidence of crimes by Serbia and
Croatia of atrocities that are consistent with genocide, [the judges]
are saying that they do not find specific intent to destroy substantial
portions of the target groups,” notes Adam Jones, a genocide scholar
at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

So what counts?

In the Serbia/Croatia cases, the court “would have expected to see
more systematic, physical killing and corralling and exterminating
of populations to more clearly meet the intent requirement,” says Mr.

Jones. Adds political scientist David B. MacDonald at the University
of Guelph, “It’s not enough to kill people, or move them around and
steal their land. You have to be able to prove that [the perpetrators]
had this bigger motivation to destroy the group in whole or in part.”

Some clear examples

Intent is unmistakable in cases such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Srebrenica
genocide, when Serbian paratroopers killed more than 8,000 Bosnian
Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian War. Canada also considers the
Holocaust, Ukrainian famine in 1930s Soviet Russia and the Ottoman
empire killings of Armenians as genocide.

Related

There were widespread war crimes in Balkan wars, but neither side
committed genocide: UN’s top court

What sort of numbers?

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under dictator Pol Pot is estimated to
have killed as many as two million people in 1975-79. In Rwanda, up
to 800,000, mainly ethnic Tutsis, perished in a matter of 100 days
in 1994, killed by ethnic Hutu extremists.

What about Canada?

Some scholars argue Canada has its own history of genocide. They point
to residential schools and continuing violence against First Nations’
peoples, especially women. “The residential school system in Canada,
and certainly the structural extermination of Native peoples in many
other parts of the colonized world, qualifies because of the mortality
involved,” says Mr. Jones.

Local pushback

Electronic music group A Tribe Called Red pulled out of performing at
the opening festivities for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in
Winnipeg because they felt the museum misrepresented and downplayed
“the genocide that was experienced by Indigenous people in Canada by
refusing to name it genocide.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PREMIER SAYS TURKEY WON’T TO JEWISH, ARMENIAN LOBBIES

Europe Online Magazine
Feb 9 2015

Europe
09.02.2015

Istanbul (dpa) – Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey will
not “succumb” to pressure from special interest groups, including
the Jewish and Armenian lobbies, the state-run Anadolu news agency
reported.

“We will not succumb to the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the
Greek lobby,” Davutoglu said on Sunday night.

Davutoglu appeared to be responding to a sharply critical opinion
piece published in The New York Times last week by Fethullah Gulen,
a US-based Turkish Muslim cleric who has been locked in a feud with
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his former ally.

Gulen’s article lamented what he saw as the rolling back of democratic
reforms in Turkey and said the current government was “leading the
country toward totalitarianism.”

The government charges that Gulen is running a “parallel state,”
and Davutoglu said he would not bow to his rival’s lobby either.

The authorities have carried out sweeping detentions against supporters
of Gulen, including police officers and journalists. Many have since
been released.

Turkey heads to parliamentary elections in June.

In April, Armenians will mark the centenary of the 1915 massacres in
Turkey which many deem a genocide.

ARMENIA MAKES CENTENARY CALL FOR TURKEY TO RECOGNISE 1915 KILLINGS AS GENOCIDE

Centenary News, UK
Feb 9 2015

Posted on centenarynews.com on 09 February 2015

Armenia issued a Centenary declaration on January 29th 2015, repeating
demands for Turkey to recognise the killing of Armenians during the
First World War as genocide.

President Serzh Sargsyan read the ‘Pan-Armenian Declaration on
the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide’ during a ceremony at the
Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in the capital, Yerevan.

The 12-point document calls on the Republic of Turkey to “recognise
and condemn the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire.”

It declares the 100th anniversary to be an “important milestone in
the ongoing struggle for historical justice under the motto I remember
and demand.”

Turkey, successor state to the Ottoman Empire, strongly denies that
genocide took place.

The dispute remains one of the most bitter legacies of the First
World War.

Estimates of the numbers of Armenians who were killed or died
following the deportations ordered in May 1915 vary widely, from
500,000 to 1,500,000.

Turkish Government

But the Turkish Government says “no authentic evidence exists to
support the claim that there was a premeditated plan by the Ottoman
Government to kill off Armenians.”

It insists that the aim was to move the Armenian population away from
the war zone, and the advancing Russian Army, to southern provinces
of the empire.

The Pan-Armenian Declaration was adopted unanimously at a meeting
of the ‘State Commission on Coordination of the events for the
commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.’

It expresses the ‘united will of Armenia and the Armenian people to
achieve worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide.’

A copy has been sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Ban-Ki Moon. Genocide was formally declared to be a crime under
international law in a UN convention adopted in 1948. It’s defined
as ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.’

Turkey says a joint commission of historians should be established
to study what it calls ‘the events of 1915,’ but the call has been
rejected in Yerevan.

Click on the link for the full text of the Pan-Armenian Declaration.

A statement of Turkey’s position can be found on the Turkish Ministry
of Foreign Affairs website.

Further reading is also available here in a Centenary News article
from May 2014

Sources: Armenian Government; Turkish Government

Images courtesy of President of Armenia’s Office

Posted by: Peter Alhadeff, Centenary News

RUSSIAN EXPERT DETECTS ANTI-RUSSIAN PROVOCATIONS IN ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 9 2015

9 February 2015 – 6:01pm

Sergey Mikheyev, deputy head of the Editorial Council of Vestnik
Kavkaza, the director general of the Institute for Caspian Cooperation,
said on the program “Nachalo”, broadcast on Vesti FM, that Armenia
abstaining from votes against Russia at the PACE in January was an
incitement to anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia.

Giorgi Saralidze, the broadcast’s host, reminded that Armenia’s
behaviour contradicted its status as a strategic ally of Russia. The
host added that Armenia had always been backing Russia, even during
the UN votes on Crimea and Ukraine, until recently. Mikheyev associates
such sentiment with the murder of a family of six by a Russian soldier
in Gyumri. He noted that all Armenian ministers had studied in the
U.S. and Europe and were aligned with the West.

The expert admitted that President Serzh Sargsyan had agreed to
integrate into the Eurasian Union, but the majority of the country’s
elite was aligned with the West. Mikheyev believes that Armenia has
a very strong anti-Russian lobby.

Despite Valery Permyakov admitting his guilt in murdering the family,
Mikheyev considers the case exceptionally mysterious, stating that
there were no motives for the murder. Permyakov, according to Mikheyev,
refuses to testify. The expert reiterated that the incident was used
to stoke anti-Russian tensions.

ARMENIA TO CERTIFY MILITARY PRODUCTS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 9 2015

9 February 2015 – 7:16pm

The Armenian National Bureau of Expertise has opened an office for
military and dual-use commodities. Lana Mshetsyan, the PR manager of
the Bureau, clarified that the office was named the National
Certification Center, News.am reports.

The National Bureau of Expertise is an expert center conducting 26
types and 122 subtypes of expertise. It will now do so for military
and dual-use commodities.

RUSSIAN SCOUTS START DRILLS IN ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 9 2015

9 February 2015 – 8:24pm

Scouts of the Southern Military District of Russia have started drills
at the Kamkhud Training Range in Armenia. Over 600 people and about
50 vehicles will continue the drills for about a month, Trend reports.

The military have already made a 20-km march to the range. They will
exercise in communication, shooting, tactics, engineering, topography,
driving in extreme conditions during the day and night.

PASCAL MONNIER: NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT SHOULDN’T BE CONSIDERED INSOLVABLE

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 9 2015

9 February 2015 – 3:28pm

It is important not to consider the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh as
something that will last forever, French Ambassador to Azerbaijan
Pascal Monnier believes.

“There is a saying in French: ‘you don’t need the reason of hope to
be active’. If there is a conflict in Ukraine it doesn’t mean we
have to be completely inactive in Nagorno-Karabakh. My impression
and the will of our government are not linking these two. As soon
as the date is agreed with the parties, the co-chairs will come to
the region. There is a willingness to help and to maintain dialogue
between the parties,” Trend cited him as saying.

According to the diplomat, mediation is neither a tribunal nor a court,
it is a way to use all the techniques available for the diplomats and
experts in confidence building in a conflict resolution in post-crisis
management.

He added that the co-chairs cannot decide for the presidents in terms
of what is acceptable for them, for the people of the region.

“We urge, by all means, both presidents, both countries to start a
dialogue and to avoid any measures which can harm this dialogue,”
Monnier noted.

Armenia is unlikely to be happy with the status quo, according to
the French ambassador.

“As we know, Armenia is occupying a lot of territories, 7 territories,
and also controlling Nagorno-Karabakh. If we look at the economic
situation of Armenia, we don’t have an impression that Armenia is
getting a lot from the situation. I think Armenia would get more
if peace was there. We know that there are three major principles
of resolution: non-use of force, territorial integrity and
self-determination,” said the ambassador, adding that territorial
integrity and self-determination are sometimes contradictory.

Earlier, the deputy chairman of the OSCE PA’s committee on political
affairs and security, the Azerbaijani MP Azay Guliyev, said he plans to
raise the issue of increasing the number of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
from three countries – the US, Russia and France – to five, including
Germany and Turkey. Guliyev said he will raise the issue at the winter
session of the OSCE PA, to be held in Vienna.

Monnier believes the co-chairing group is the right body to find
a peaceful, lasting solution to the conflict. “At the same time,
what I think is that any concrete support of any member states is
welcomed that means that the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh is something of concern for all the nations because
it violates stability in the region and it also prevents the economic
integration of the region,” he said, adding that it has a negative
impact on everybody.

From: A. Papazian

WILL MUNICH CONFERENCE 2015 GO DOWN IN HISTORY?

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 9 2015

9 February 2015 – 4:04pm

Yesterday 51st Security Conference in Munich, during which the
participating countries presented their current positions on the
issues of security in Europe and beyond, has ended. The key topic of
the conference was the Ukrainian crisis, for which the usually single
point of view of the West was divided into two: German Chancellor
Angela Merkel after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin
has proposed a soft diplomatic solution to the problem, while US
politicians continue to insist on supplies of lethal weapons to Kiev.

This Munich Conference may go down in history as well as Munich-2007,
the chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International
Affairs Konstantin Kosachev said, adding that now it’s necessary that
loud statements be implemented. In general, the conference has showed
the change of Western politicians’ approach to the Russian position.

“Firstly, last year’s logic ‘we don’t agree with Russia and refuse
to talk’ changed to at least ‘we don’t agree, but we must talk’.

Secondly, the EU, unlike the US, rules out the possibility of supplying
weapons to Ukraine. Consequently, if we ignore the public rhetoric,
the Europeans in fact back Moscow’s political settlement plan rather
than Kiev’s military scenario,” the senator said.

Experts’ opinions on the results of the Munich Conference-2015 are
divided. So, the President of the National Strategy Institute, Mikhail
Remizov, drew attention to the fact that the event itself is the only
possibility for the parties to express and to hear their points of
view, rather than substantive negotiations to take any decision.

“Therefore, the conference was of an intermediate nature, because
it took place waiting for the results of the negotiations of the
‘Normandy Quartet’,” he said.

“Perhaps the most significant aspect was the very unpleasant
welcome speech of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who quite
correctly and clearly voiced Russia’s position and didn’t go beyond
it. This was demonstrated by Lavrov’s personal rejection and biased
perception of the Russian position, the desire for a certain moral
ostracism in relation to Russia. The accurate, more restrained than
earlier, rhetoric of Chancellor Angela Merkel stood out against this
background. It was clear that caution is given simply by the presence
of the negotiating process, which was initiated in Kiev, and that the
conference has once again confirmed that, regardless of the outcome
of these negotiations, the isolation policy of Western countries,
the US and its allies against Russia will continue,” the expert said.

The political scientist Rovshan Ibragimov, in his turn, praised the
Munich conference as an important platform for discussions and meetings
of statesmen. “It is necessary to re-examine together any problems
or issues which the country and the region are facing now. It is no
coincidence that in parallel with the Munich conference a meeting
on Ukraine was held in Moscow of the leaders of France, Germany and
Russia. So it is rather a structural platform that addresses the
security problems,” he said.

Ibragimov spoke about the presence of Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev at the conference. “He had a meeting on security issues as well
as on geo-economic expectations, with the presidents of Macedonia and
Serbia. Also the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed.

It is very significant that, even before his visit to Davos,
during Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Germany, Angela Merkel said that the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has some parallels with the security issues
in the post-Soviet space, which is like a mirror image of events in
Ukraine. I think it’s like just a new perception of the problem. So
on the basis of Munich, the expectation came that issues of permits of
perennial conflicts in the former Soviet Union will now be seen through
the prism of problems of integrity in Ukraine,” the analyst said.

“Perhaps the most significant aspect was the very unpleasant
welcome speech of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who quite
correctly and clearly voiced Russia’s position and didn’t go beyond
it. This was demonstrated by Lavrov’s personal rejection and biased
perception of the Russian position, the desire for a certain moral
ostracism in relation to Russia. The accurate, more restrained than
earlier, rhetoric of Chancellor Angela Merkel stood out against this
background. It was clear that caution is given simply by the presence
of the negotiating process, which was initiated in Kiev, and that the
conference has once again confirmed that, regardless of the outcome
of these negotiations, the isolation policy of Western countries,
the US and its allies against Russia will continue,” the expert said.

The political scientist Rovshan Ibragimov, in his turn, praised the
Munich conference as an important platform for discussions and meetings
of statesmen. “It is necessary to re-examine together any problems
or issues which the country and the region are facing now. It is no
coincidence that in parallel with the Munich conference a meeting
on Ukraine was held in Moscow of the leaders of France, Germany and
Russia. So it is rather a structural platform that addresses the
security problems,” he said.

Ibragimov spoke about the presence of Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev at the conference. “He had a meeting on security issues as well
as on geo-economic expectations, with the presidents of Macedonia and
Serbia. Also the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed.

It is very significant that, even before his visit to Davos,
during Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Germany, Angela Merkel said that the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has some parallels with the security issues
in the post-Soviet space, which is like a mirror image of events in
Ukraine. I think it’s like just a new perception of the problem. So
on the basis of Munich, the expectation came that issues of permits of
perennial conflicts in the former Soviet Union will now be seen through
the prism of problems of integrity in Ukraine,” the analyst said.

Political analyst Ramaz Sakvarelidze also drew attention to a
parallel, which had already been drawn by Prime Minister of Georgia
Irakli Garibashvili, between the problems of Ukraine and Georgia. “He
stressed that, leaving events in Georgia without reaction, the West
has a more extensive and more dramatic situation in Ukraine. How
it will be perceived by Western countries, which have not yet been
able to find the key to solving not only the Georgian, but also the
Ukrainian hot topic, is difficult to say,” he noted.

The expert added that Garibashvili would like to emphasize the fact
that “if the international community will be directed only to suspend
the process in Ukraine, and even if it will achieve this, it is
unlikely to save the world community from new surprises.” “When the
bloodshed in Georgia was suspended, the international community was
calm, but now it has received new bloodshed in Ukraine. So a local
task to stop the conflict can be solved, but it is too simplistic
and does not correspond to reality,” the political scientist says.

RUSSIAN SOLDIER TO STAND TRIAL FOR FAMILY MASSACRE IN ARMENIA

Global Times
Feb 9 2015

A Russian soldier accused of murdering seven members of an Armenian
family will be court martialled in a Russian military base, local
media reported Monday.

Competent Armenian and Russian authorities made the decision to try
Valery Permyakov within the framework of a bilateral agreement on
the 102nd military base in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city,
according to the Panorama news portal.

A joint investigative group is working on an indictment that
corresponds to the legislation of the Russian Federation, the report
said.

In addition, materials collected by Armenian investigators will
be handed over to the Russian side for attaching the case to armed
desertion and mass murder.

On Jan. 12, Permyakov deserted from the Russian military base and
killed seven members of an Armenian family in Gyumri, including a
six-month-old baby.

After the cruel mass murder, the conscript was captured at the
Armenian border when he was trying to flee to Turkey. Under Russian
law, he could face a maximum punishment of life in prison if convicted.