#4
Moscow News
June 12-18, 2002
Power Men Prove Powerless
Were the riots on Moscow's Manezh Square organized?
MN Investigations Desk

The June 9 events showed the power structures' utter inability to ensure public order. For one and a half hours the center of Moscow was fully in the hands of a disorderly mob.

It does not take a seer to foresee what could happen in front of a giant screen during a live broadcast of a soccer match with one of the sides being Russia. Look at how the police are out in force at the Luzhniki stadium for a routine tournament between Russian clubs. Scuffles at the stadium have taught law enforcement agencies something. Why then were there virtually none to be seen on Manezh Square, where, according to some estimates, more than 10,000 fans had turned out?

Clearly it was not our side's defeat that triggered the rampage. Our victory could have caused it just as easily. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. No matter what, bottles would have been hurled at the screen and a melee would have begun.

Sensing the helplessness of the authorities, the fans became more rowdy, and scuffles grew into mass riots.

Obviously neither the Interior Ministry nor the capital's Internal Affairs Main Administration learned any lessons from the event that recently shocked Moscow - a violent attack on the Tsaritsyno outdoor market which left several people dead. The leaders of neither the aggressive fans nor of skinheads or any other hooligans were neutralized, which points to an extremely poor organization of the Manezh event. Police proved ineffectual in an emergency situation. Frequent personnel changes within the police department must have been a factor.

Was the violence spontaneous or stage-managed?

Certain facts give cause to think that it did not happen spontaneously. Some of the "fans" were carrying baseball bats and sharpened iron bars which were then used to smash cars and shop windows, and beat up passersby. It is indicative that the cars were torched in a very professional manner.

Damage caused by the June 9 riots is substantial but not catastrophic. The political repercussions are far more serious. First of all, they dealt a serious blow to the image of the Russian president who in his state-of-the-nation address to parliament put a special emphasis on the need to fight extremism, urging law enforcers to take the same measures against extremists as are used against the criminal community. Could the Sunday afternoon events be seen as a response by the power agencies?

Moscow has seen no riots on this scale with loss of life since October 1993. While before June 9, most political and economic experts agreed that an Argentinian scenario, including mass riots, was impossible in Russia, now this is no longer the case. A distinguishing feature of the latest violence, compared to 1993, is that it was accompanied by the looting of food stalls and shops - like in Argentina.

If a goal scored against a national side can provoke such violence, what could it be like in the event of more serious causes for protest? It so happened that in an RTR television weekly review, the Manezh Square riots coincidentally followed a story about a possible collusion by oil cartels to raise gasoline prices. What if a conflict flared up between the oil tycoons, the public, and the ruling authorities over gas prices? What could that lead to? Who will spearhead the boisterous mob - fans, skinheads, or someone else?

There is yet another ingredient to these events. It is no secret that the so-called democratic part of the political elite tried to exert pressure on the president over its concern that Russia is increasingly taking on the trappings of a police state. This complicates relations with the West. According to these politicians, the president agreed: Indeed, the state's police functions should be somewhat curtailed. Yet after June 9, there can be no question of any curtailing. After the mass riots just outside the Kremlin walls and the State Duma building, police functions can only be reinforced.

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