Witness the power of the fully armed and operational flat tax!
Posted on 12/30/2004 4:11:34 PM PST by nanak
TARTU, Estonia -- A camp intended to confine illegal immigrants until they can be speedily deported from the Russian Federation opened Wednesday in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, the first such camp to be opened in post-Soviet Russia and one organized in such a way that seems certain to exacerbate ethnic tensions not only there but elsewhere as well.
Krasnodar Gov. Aleksandr Tkachev, who has long pushed this idea, said at the opening, "We have begun the struggle with uninvited guests, and we will continue this work to find, detain, and expel those who do not wish to obey" Russian laws, Radio Mayak Kubani reported Wednesday. (http://www.radioportal.ru/mayak/index.shtml?news )
Tkachev added that people living in his territory "ought to be able to live a peaceful life and not be afraid of going out to work or to rest. And as experience shows, among these illegal (migrants), there are criminals."
In the near future, Krasnoyarsk officials have indicated that they plan to open three additional camps elsewhere in their region. Each of these four tent cities will hold up to 150 people pending deportation and will be heavily guarded, according to the newspaper "Novyyze Izvestiya." (See http://www.newizv.ru/news/?id_news=13673=2004-10-21 .)
This action comes following a significant increase in the reported number of illegal aliens coming into the region from the Caucasus and Central Asia and the apparent inability of officials there to control the situation, even though in the last year alone they had increased the number of militia officers solely responsible for dealing with this issue to 400.
Officials both in Moscow and the regions are attempting to deal with the anger many Russians feel toward illegal immigrants, especially those from the Caucasus and Central Asia. But so far, most of the measures they have tried have proved ineffective, often because of the corruption of militia officers willing to allow illegal aliens to remain for a price.
That has led to calls for more radical measures like those now being introduced in Krasnodar. But there are three reasons for thinking that these steps are likely to exacerbate ethnic tensions there even if they succeed in reducing the influx of illegal aliens from the Caucasus or further afield.
First, Tkachev has played upon popular prejudice by suggesting that illegal immigrants are responsible for a rise in crime. Research by the Interior Ministry in Moscow and by the noted ethno-sociologist Emil Pain have disproved that contention, but many Russians are inclined to believe it. Tkachev's remarks will only reinforce such attitudes.
Second, the Krasnodar authorities say that they will organize the camps on ethnic lines. That is, they will put people from Ukraine and Moldova in one of the camps, people from Armenia in another, and those from Central Asian countries in a third. Intended to make the management of these camps easier, this step could easily have just the opposite effect.
Other Russian regional governments that have thought about setting up such filtration camps in the past have concluded that it would be a mistake to organize them along ethnic lines, lest that provoke an explosion. (http://www.rosbalt.ru/2004/10/19/181922.html).
And third, Tkachev and his staff say that they want to do all this without putting undue burdens on Krasnodar taxpayers. To that end, they have created tent cities with few amenities. And they plan to force the illegal migrants to pay for their own deportations either on their own or by getting money from their co-ethnics who are living in the region legally.
The logic behind that approach seems to be that this will make the local non-Russian communities less willing to help their co-ethnics come to Krasnodar, but it is entirely likely that in at least some cases, this tactic will provoke anti-government and even anti-Russian feelings among both those confined and those who are told to help them.
Tkachev's policies may nonetheless be popular with ethnic Russians there who are angry about illegal immigration. Consequently and especially in the absence of serious criticism from outside, what he does may very well be copied by others in other regions of the country where the influx of illegal migrants is large.
But even such draconian measures may not reduce the number of illegal aliens any time soon. Economic and demographic pressures are simply too great. What such steps almost certainly will do, however, is to further divide the Russian Federation's ethnic communities and thus make the achievement of inter-ethnic accord there that much more difficult.
Sounds familiar.
Research by the Interior Ministry in Moscow and by the noted ethno-sociologist Emil Pain have disproved that contention, but many Russians are inclined to believe it. Tkachev's remarks will only reinforce such attitudes.
Monger On, Comrade!
In the US, it is called CaleeeFornn-ya
Illegal immigrants in Russia?
It wasn't long ago when people were trying to get out, not in.
Since their population is declining, they may soon have no choice. They may be down from 140 million to 120 million over the next 25 years.
These are for chechens. Krasnodar is a favorite place of mine in Russia.
Ping
Witness the power of the fully armed and operational flat tax!
First a flat tax. Now concentration camps for illegals!
They're not doing badly for a bunch of commie-bastards.
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