DAGESTAN: ATTENTION FOCUSED ON CONTINUED VIOLENCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 003426

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/26/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KISL PHUM PINR RS
SUBJECT: DAGESTAN: ATTENTION FOCUSED ON CONTINUED VIOLENCE
AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Alice G. Wells; reason 1.4
(d)


1. (C) Summary: The Moscow-based human rights organization
Memorial has begun to focus more attention on the simmering
violence that permeates Dagestan, one of Russia's most
unstable regions. At a November 24 press conference,
Memorial head Oleg Orlov said the situation in Dagestan is as
bad as in neighboring Chechnya and nearby Ingushetiya.
Mothers of Dagestan founder Svetlana Isayeva said that there
is a civil war going on there with people dying every day.
Dagestan's president Mukhu Aliyev has taken a page out of the
playbook of recently replaced Ingushetiya president Murat
Zyazikov in blaming the republic's problems on the West;
failure by Aliyev to take more effective action to stem the
violence might ultimately cost him his job. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Dagestan, the most populous of Russia's northern
Caucasus republics, remains one of its most unstable.
According to the Moscow-based human rights organization
Memorial, during the summer of 2008, eleven members of
Russian federal law enforcement serving in Dagestan were
killed and another 13 were wounded. In contrast, during the
same period in neighboring Chechnya 33 were killed and 70
wounded; and in nearby Ingushetiya (with a far smaller
population) 29 were killed and 75 wounded. During a November
24 press conference, Memorial's head Oleg Orlov noted,
however, that beginning in September there was a significant
and alarming increase in the nature of the violence in
Dagestan, where the conflict had a religious character.
According to Orlov, in September 2008, federal forces
undertook two special operations in Dagestan that resulted in
the deaths of ten suspected insurgents, including several of
the purported leaders of the insurgency. On November 16,
police killed four suspected militants in a gunfight in the
capital of Makhachkala after a gunfight that lasted several
hours. Orlov said that in response to increased activity by
law enforcement, insurgents have targeted officers of federal
forces, killing five majors, one lieutenant colonel and one
colonel since September.


3. (SBU) At a November 20 conference in Makhachkala on
"Countering Ethnic and Political Extremism in Dagestan,"
Minister of Internal Affairs Adilgerey Magomedtagirov said
that there were seven terrorist cells comprised of from seven
to 15 people each (or a total of 100 terrorists) operating in
Dagestan. He also said that the ministry has a list of 1,370
people in Dagestan considered to be "Wahhabists." (Note:
"Wahhabism" is banned in Dagestan. End Note) This is the
second such conference held in Dagestan; the first was in
June 2007. Memorial representative Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya,
who had recently returned from Dagestan, said that the list
was made up of persons who attend ultra-conservative Salafist
mosques in Dagestan. She added that if your name appears on
the list, you have little choice but to "go to the
mountains."

Illegal Detentions Spawn Unlawful Prosecutions
-------------- -


4. (SBU) Orlov and Sokiryanskaya implied that federal and
local law enforcement operating in Dagestan had not learned
from the mistakes over the past several years by their
colleagues in Chechnya and Ingushetiya. According to them,
law enforcement officers were abducting suspects and, in some
cases, torturing them to extract confessions. Sokiryanskaya
and the founder of the NGO "Mothers of Dagestan" Svetlana
Isayeva said that the bodies of three men killed in a late
October 2008 police action and given to their families for
burial had signs that the men had been tortured. More
alarming to Memorial's representatives, however, has been the
use of illegal detentions in order to create unlawful
criminal proceedings against suspected militants. According
to Orlov, illegal detentions have become part and parcel of
the process of instituting false criminal proceedings against
suspects. These detentions are not considered as abductions,
since the suspects were released after a short period during
which time law enforcement was able to create evidence
against them in order to detain them indefinitely. Orlov
said that as a result, statistics on abductions in Dagestan
will probably decrease this year, giving the false impression
of an improved human rights situation there.


5. (SBU) Isayeva stated that the current situation in
Dagestan is a "civil war" in which someone -- a member of law
enforcement organs, suspected insurgents or innocent
civilians -- dies every day. She and others said that the
situation there is exacerbated by the clan structure and
traditional society that requires retribution for the death
of or injury to family members. She recounted an instance in
which the uncle of a young man killed a police officer after
his nephew was tortured and sexually abused while in police
custody. (Note: After Isayeva said that in such cases
retribution was justified, Orlov quickly stated that Memorial
believed that judicial proceedings are the only means for
punishing police brutality. End Note).

Local Government Response is Oddly Familiar
--------------


6. (C) The response by Dagestan president Mukhu Aliyev to
the violence and the actions of law enforcement has been
reminiscent of that of recently replaced Ingushetiya
president Murat Zyazikov. Aliyev, who replaced Magomedali
Magomedov who left office as head of Dagestan's State Council
in February 2006, taking the title of president, has claimed
that western influences are the cause of Dagestan's ills.
Earlier this year he stated that NGOs working in Dagestan
were agents of Western secret services. According to
Memorial, the government launched a campaign to discredit
Mothers of Dagestan in the Spring 2008. Newspapers quoting
anonymous law enforcement sources claimed that the group had
links with militants and law enforcement officials reportedly
threatened members of the NGO with criminal prosecution.
Isayeva told us privately that government officials,
including the local ombudsman, refuse to meet with her.


7. (SBU) At the November 20 conference on extremism, Aliyev
went a step further and claimed that active interference in
the North Caucasus by "Western and other foreign countries"
brought about the rise of extremism, nationalism and
separatism in Dagestan. Memorial's Sokiryanskaya said that
unlike in Chechnya, where president Ramzan Kadyrov has
largely succeeded in establishing control over law
enforcement, Aliyev does not enjoy similar powers in Dagestan.

Comment
--------------


8. (C) While he may have been the Kremlin's answer to
Dagestan's complex ethnic and clan structure when he was
selected in 2006, Aliyev will have to do better to control
the simmering violence and increased scrutiny of the human
rights community if he is to avoid the same fate of
Ingushetiya's Murat Zyazikov.
BEYRLE