RUSSIA: Sights Set on Fighting Terrorism

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Sep 19 2005 (IPS) - As the United States is blamed for shifting the focus of the United Nations summit last week away from development, Russia as much as the Bush Administration is focused on the war on terror..

President Vladimir Putin was first among leaders of 63 countries to sign an international convention on the fight against nuclear terrorism. “The significance that we attach to this document is evident from the fact that it was Russia that initiated the birth of this convention and was the first to sign it,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told IPS.

“Our logic is absolutely clear,” he said. “Taking into account the aggressive tactics of terrorists, whose deeds are aimed at producing as many victims among the civilian population as possible, we need to take all possible measures to put a firm barrier that will never allow them to obtain weapons of mass destruction.”

But differences have emerged between Russia and several Western countries over Chechen rebels.

“To our surprise, they feel quite comfortable in individual Western countries and continue to take steps to destabilise the situation in Chechnya and the entire North Caucasus, collect funds and recruit mercenaries for a ‘dirty’ war against the Chechen people and Russia as a whole,” Kamynin said.

“This concerns differences in defining the concept of terrorism and drawing a clear line between the concepts of terrorism and national liberation movements,” he said.

The Russian state duma, the lower house of parliament, has called on foreign parliaments and the international community to show broader solidarity in the fight against terrorism..

Russia wants Chechen rebels to be listed among those regarded as the most dangerous perpetrators of the terrorist threat. The current UN list comprises organisations and persons associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Russia is seeking the extradition of Chechen emissaries Akhmed Zakayev from Britain and Ilyas Akhmadov from the United States. Russian diplomats have often said that “double standards” such as fighting terrorism while granting political asylum to Chechen separatists are unacceptable.

Russian officials see Iraq as a particular danger. “There is an incubator there in Iraq,” Anatoly Safonov, Russian presidential envoy for international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and cross-border organised crime told IPS. “The arrival of thousands of volunteers is not that bad. What is bad is that they will return home and infest their national territories. Iraq is another Afghanistan, but it is more serious and dangerous.”

Safonov also expressed concern that “financial transfers to terrorist organisations are conducted under the guise of various charity foundations and religious organisations.” He said that “the division of terrorists into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is absolutely unacceptable.”

Russian authorities want the media on their side in fighting terrorism.

Attempts by terrorists to use the media must be prevented, and “barriers must be built to stop the spread of extremist ideologies,” the duma said in a statement last week.

“I would like to say that Russia is prepared to go even further in countering the ideology and propaganda of terrorism, and the various forms of its glorification, by emphasising within this framework not only the considerable responsibility of states, but also of civil society, including the mass media,” Yury Korguniuk, spokesman for the Indem foundation, a political think tank, told IPS. “I am certain that we shall come to this without infringing on fundamental democratic freedoms.”

The government concerns reflect considerable public fear over terrorism.

Every second Russian citizen (51 percent) considers the global fight against terrorism unsuccessful, according to a poll conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre just before the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Seventeen percent thought the anti-terror coalition a complete failure. Only one in four Russians surveyed thought the coalition’s actions a success.

Seventy percent of those questioned in an earlier poll said their greatest fear was attacks on strategic facilities such as nuclear power plants, water reservoirs and urban life support systems. About 1,600 people in 100 cities, towns and villages were questioned in each survey.