GET YOUR HATE ON:

Anger rising in volatile Caucasus: School saga is inflaming old divides between ethnic groups. (Scott Peterson, 9/08/04, CS Monitor)

Hard-liners here remember the brutality applied by Czarists, Soviets, and Russians to Muslim communities in the Caucasus, which grated under Moscow's attempts to impose its rule. One name often invoked is that of Alexei Yermolov, who vowed to subdue the region when he became military chief in 1816.

"I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses," he declared. "Out of pure humanity, I am inexorably severe.... One execution saves hundreds of Russians from destruction and thousands of Muslims from treason."

General Yermolov's contempt was matched by that of Stalin, who on the night of Feb. 22, 1944 - at the height of war with Nazi Germany - drew resources from the front to begin a mass deportation of more than 600,000 Chechens, Ingush, and other Muslims to Central Asia. One quarter of the deportees died in the first five years.

"Stalin didn't finish things with the Chechens: He deported them but didn't kill them. He should have killed them, we are convinced of that now," says Fidarova.

Reverence for Stalin has undergone a renaissance in Beslan. Though demonized abroad for killing millions in concentration camps, Stalin is revered here in part because one of his parents was an Ossetian. A bust was erected two years ago, and "Friendship Street" was renamed "Stalin Street."

"The rate of hatred is growing across the country," says Emil Pain, head of the Center for Analytic and Regional Research in Moscow. "It is the hatred of Ossetians against Ingush, Russians against Chechens, military people against civilians, etc."

The conflict today can be traced to Stalin's deportation of Chechens, says Galina Soldatova, an ethnopsychologist at Moscow State University. Stalin's secret police "made Ossetians settle into the homes of the people who were deported at gunpoint. In the Caucasus, to seize your neighbor's house is an awful crime with far-reaching consequences, which are still felt today."

Move everyone out and irradiate the place.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2004 6:45 PM