Russia has no policy for Northern Caucasus, participants of debates "Conflicts in the Caucasus" assert

Russia has no policy for Northern Caucasus - only an attempt to use bayonets that leads to numerous victims only. This was stated by Svetlana Gannushkina, a human rights defender, chair of the committee "Civil Assistance", a member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and a member of the Board on Human Rights at the President of the Russian Federation, last week in Moscow in the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Centre during expanded debates "Conflicts in the Caucasus" from the general cycle "War and Peace".

"Russia has no policy for Northern Caucasus; there are actions and convulsive moves aimed at preservation, and in some cases - at restoration of the empire, by acting with bayonets only, as the empire did. It results not in success, but in terrible, irreplaceable and unforgivable victims. I think that we have passed behind the non-return point in this respect, and we'll fail to set up stability," said Ms Gannushkina.

During the discussion, she also told about her visit to Chechnya as the chair of the Committee "Civil Assistance", engaged in humanitarian projects.

"I feel very sad, when the words 'Chechnya' and 'Kadyrov' (President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, - comment of the "Caucasian Knot") are accompanied by the word 'stability'. There's no stability whatsoever," she said. "Chechnya is overwhelmed by fear, coppering, immorality and barbarian corruption."

Ms Gannushkina told how members of her committee presented the project of methodical and psychological help to teachers of mountain schools in those areas of the republic, where there are militants and where, as she said, "life is still dangerous, and everyone who is there is under threat."

According to her story, a school mistress told about her son, whose schoolmates went to the mountains. "And every time, when they conduct a special operation there, he is taken away and interrogated, and how they interrogate - it's clear; and she doesn't know what to do. The only way out is to remove that guy out of there completely. Since either he joins militants, where they naturally entice him, or just perish at the next interrogation," Svetlana said.

She also reported that in the course of their visit to Chechnya activists of the committee "Civil Assistance" rendered material aid to people, whose houses were burnt down.

"It was done to punish them. It has announced on TV and told by Delimkhanov and Kadyrov: this would be punishment for those who just thought about any contacts with militants. This is what the today's Chechen stability looks like. People whom we invited: there were 10 families - two of them didn't come for fear of consequences," she said.

In her opinion, for Northern Caucasus a "sad forecast can be made: nothing will help - forming a new federal district, other measures; the only thing that can help - an absolutely impossible comprehension of the historical process, which now takes place in Northern Caucasus, and in Russia as a whole."

In the opinion of political scientist Victor Mizin, who spoke at the debates "Conflicts in the Caucasus", neither South Ossetia nor Abkhazia, moreover - Northern Caucasus, will not get anywhere away from Russia."

"But there can be no force, which would want to invest, from the West or, say, even from Turkey, or even willing to spread its influence. And Russia's horror is just in the fact that this territory will remain with it," he believes.

He noted that "even the so-called 'Chechen separatists' wanted, maybe, to get separated, but they didn't want to 'float away' from Russia anywhere." "Since it was clear that by all money flows and intellectually and politically they were tied to Russia. And they were quite happy. All the elites of all North-Caucasian republics were happy. And they are ready to withstand any 'status quo' possible," Mr Mizin believes.

"Whatever money is sent there, it never reaches simple people, and Russian political scientists have written volumes about the terrible social and economic situation, about the unemployment level in Northern Caucasus, that youth is no place to go, but nothing is created there," he said.

In the opinion of the political scientist, there will be changes in the region until "not just help, but competent Russia comes there."

He thinks that the conflicts that burst out in Northern Caucasus have a "very indirect attitude" to the opposition with the Islamic civilization; their reason is in terrible social and economic conditions.