#19 - JRL 7276
The Gazette (Canada)
August 4, 2003
A protest no one hears: Since Russia sent troops into
Chechnya in 1999,
Muscovites have gathered in Pushkin Square. Despite little support for the war,
they are mostly ignored
By Michael Mainville
Moscow
It's rush hour on a Thursday afternoon and Dmitry Brodsky's small band of anti-war protesters have gathered once again in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Holding banners that read "Chechnya, Forgive Us" and wearing red "Stop the War" buttons, the diverse group of about 20 activists, schoolteachers, businessmen and pensioners has met in this spot every week for the past three years.
But for Muscovites rushing home from work or enjoying a sunny summer day in one of downtown's most attractive spots, the protesters barely register. Most shuffle past with their heads down, averting their eyes from the banners or swerving to avoid taking anti-war pamphlets. Over the course of an hour-and-a-half, less than 10 people stop to talk to the protesters, and half of them are shouting abuse.
"Sometimes people can get very aggressive, shouting at us, threatening us. But usually they just walk past and ignore us," said Brodsky, head of the Committee for Anti-War Action, which organizes the weekly protest.
But Brodsky - a slim 53-year-old with a tangle of wild hair and a bushy, salt-and-pepper beard - isn't deterred.
"Somebody has to do something to oppose this war, even if there are not that many of us," he said.
Brodsky and his group have been gathering in the square since a few months after the Russian government sent troops into Chechnya in 1999, in its second post-Soviet attempt to crush an armed separatist movement. Over the past 10 years, Chechnya's two wars have claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. The wars have been marked by accusations of horrifying behaviour on both sides and human rights groups have repeatedly accused Russian forces of kidnapping, torturing and killing civilians.
Russian troops returned to Chechnya after a series of deadly apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities that the Kremlin blamed on separatists and initially the war had wide public backing.
But as casualties have mounted, support has waned.
According to Russia's Public Opinion Foundation, which conducts regular polls on the issue, 64 per cent of Russians supported military action in Chechnya in late 1999. By the end of last year, that number had dropped to 36 per cent. And last month, for the first time since the start of the second war, more than half of Russians polled - 52 per cent - opposed the war. In Moscow, the number was even higher, with 63 per cent saying they disapproved of the government's policy in Chechnya.
Experts expect opposition to the war will keep growing, especially if the conflict continues to spread beyond Chechnya's borders. Chechen rebels have begun to mount desperate attacks in Moscow, including last year's theatre siege, which left 170 people dead, and a suicide bombing at a rock festival in early July that killed 15 people.
Despite this, few Russians have taken any action to oppose the war. Public demonstrations like those seen in North America and western Europe against the war in Iraq are unheard of here. And Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rose to power in 2000 after taking a tough stance on Chechnya, is widely expected to sail into a second term in next year's presidential election.
Experts and activists say Russians are too disillusioned with politics to believe they can make a difference.
"Russians think only about their own lives and the lives of their families, they don't think about bigger problems, they don't care that people are dying in Chechnya every day," said Elena Batenkova, a 41-year-old schoolteacher and a regular at the weekly protest.
Alexei Titkov, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Centre, said Russians have built up a habit of passivity over centuries of authoritarian rule. And although mass demonstrations were allowed in Soviet times, they were always government-sanctioned actions, he said.
"In the Soviet Union, participation in official demonstrations was obligatory, so now there is a backlash to this kind of activity," Titkov said. "There is no political involvement here compared to the United States and western Europe."
And few expect this will change. Titkov said that in the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, little has been done to foster grassroots democracy in Russia.
Alexei Germanov, a 62-year-old ski coach who attends the weekly protest, said he doubts Russia will ever have a strong civic society.
"Russian people have always been indifferent and will always be indifferent," he said. "It's a tradition here and the government knows that so it can go on doing whatever it wants."
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