MOSCOW (AP)--Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill to parliament Tuesday calling for tougher measures to fight extremism, in the wake of skinhead attacks on ethnic minorities that prompted widespread concern.
The bill "On Fighting Extremist Activities" was submitted to the lower house of parliament for consideration, the presidential press service said. No details of the bill were released, and it was unclear when the State Duma would review the bill.
Putin spoke out forcefully against racially motivated violence in his state of the nation address earlier this month.
"The growth of extremism is a serious threat to stability and public security in the country," Putin said in the speech. "We are referring first of all to those who under fascist and nationalist slogans and symbols organize pogroms and beat and kill people, while police and prosecutors lack effective instruments to punish the organizers and instigators."
Russia has a small ultranationalist minority that occasionally turns violent. Russian skinheads declared a "war against foreigners" earlier this month, and an Afghan interpreter was brutally slain in an attack by skinheads soon afterward.
The U.N. refugee agency has reported increased numbers of racist attacks in Russia in recent months, and appealed for police action. Several embassies in Moscow, including that of the U.S., have received threats of violence lately.
Obschaya Gazeta No. 17 April 25-May 1, 2002 ONLY SKINHEADS ARE WORSE THAN THE COMMUNISTS The threat of fascism is used by the regime to promote its own interests Author: Dmitry Furman [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS, THE REGIME HAS TO FIND THE STIMULI TO MAKE PEOPLE TURN OUT TO VOTE, AND VOTE THE WAY THE REGIME WANTS THEM TO. THE HYPE AND PANIC ABOUT NEO-NAZI SKINHEAD GANGS OVER THE PAST MONTH MAY BE VIEWED AS PART OF THE PUTIN REGIME'S STRATEGY FOR THE NEXT ELECTION.
Two events in April - the replacement of communists in Duma committees and the grotesque panic over skinhead gangs - are related to each other. They are also connected with the approaching presidential election. The parliamentary election as such is not important, and matters only as a preparation for the presidential election. Actually, the presidential election does not really matter anymore - because its outcome is all too clear.
Once every four years, the regime has to find the stimuli to make people turn out to vote, and vote the way the regime wants them to.
The need to find these stimuli once every four years generates a certain rhythm for our presidents and the state as a whole. Once he is elected, the president begins by putting some distance between himself and the forces his victory is associated with (in order to prevent them from reminding him of the past, interfering with his power, or bothering him with their past services and advice). Thus, Boris Yeltsin kicked out most "democrats" from his inner circle, those who failed to understand that they were already servants and no longer party comrades. Yeltsin came to power on the wave of a right-wing revolution and his first term in office was full of revolutionary storms. All the same, Yeltsin drifted to the center and the left. He replaced Yegor Gaidar with Viktor Chernomyrdin and Andrei Kozyrev with Yevgeny Primakov, and began pursuing an imperial policy, constantly emphasizing that he was the president of all Russians promoting national interests.
When Yeltsin decided to run for another term in office in 1996, we saw a "new Yeltsin" again, an ardent anti-communist and democrat, someone to vote for or else the country would sink into a communist dictatorship, civil war, etc. Communists are the major opposition force in this country, and once every four years presidents are forced to display a democratic alternative to the horrors of communism.
The crisis of the end of Yeltsin's second term was much more serious because it was a combination of the elements of imitation (communists again) and a bona fide political crisis. Yeltsin needed a successor, and needed him fast. The ruling elite was jumpy, and this nervousness might have resulted in a new Chechen war and probably explosions of apartment buildings.
It seems that Putin's evolution follows a similar rhythm. Like Yeltsin before him, Putin kicked out Berezovsky, equidistanced the oligarchs, and disassociated himself from Yeltsin's legacy and Yeltsin's Family. From the very beginning of his time in power, he has positioned himself as a president for all the people, as a man "getting Russia back on its feet" and claiming that the era of disasters was finally over and it was time we all built a new greater Russia under his leadership. Putin became a president reconciling the right and the left, adopting the tune of the Soviet national anthem and ordering his centrists in the Duma to take over all committees in an alliance with the communists. He recently ordered his centrists to ally with the right and drive the communists out. Why? I think the answer is clear. The presidential election is coming up, and who can be a better enemy than Zyuganov? Hence the need to kick communists about a bit, so they have to start screaming about the "anti-social regime" again and do so convincingly.
It is possible to get the exhausted Zyuganov to run for president again. It is possible to get him to roam the country dancing to folk tunes. The outcome of all this roaming and dancing is clear. In fact, however, Zyuganov or the prospect of his election as president cannot seriously scare anyone, and voter turnout may still be too low. The people have to be scared. This is where the fascist threat - the neo- nazi skinhead gangs - comes in.
It isn't hard to see that skinheads, like Barkashov's Russian National Unity before them, like the Pamyat group before that, appeared spontaneously. Spontaneously or not, the regime makes use of them whenever it feels the need. It is clear that fascist and xenophobic moods are constantly encouraged by the forces who are supposed to fight them in the first place. Skinheads are an ideal scare for the Russian public and for the West. The people do not want fascism, but most Russian citizens themselves do not like dark-skinned people. The feelings of the skinheads are part of the emotions of the majority, taken to the extreme. That is precisely why the people are prepared to believe in skinheads' threat and power.
The citizenry in Russia is always scared of itself, scared of the riots it may create, and here it is demonstrated that it is correct to be that apprehensive, that it will generate skinhead gangs and so on as soon as the leash is slackened, and that this is why it is better for the people to turn out to vote, and vote for the regime again. The West gets another confirmation that the Russian people are dangerous and needs an iron hand. When Russia is on the threshold of true fascism, no one will care about human rights in it or about whatever Berezovsky might be blaming the regime for.
We are approaching the next regularly scheduled pseudo-crisis. It will pass, and all sorts of fascist and communist threats will be promptly forgotten after 2004. But then it will be 2008, the time of a more serious crisis - when Putin will have to hand over power to a successor, or change the Constitution. We can only hope that the regime will do is homework properly this time, and that we will get by without scares like skinheads, without any new wars or explosions like the ones in 1999.