RIA Novosti
October 21, 2004

COSSACK LAND TO INTERN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?

MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) – Illegal immigration is rampant in
European Russia’s south. It is a bad headache for Alexander Tkachev,
Krasnodar territorial governor. As he sees the matter, it takes
filtration camps for aliens and stateless persons to deport illegal
immigrants quickly enough. Vladimir Yeremin, recently appointed
territorial top prosecutor, sees the governor’s point, says the Novye
Izvestia, major Moscow-based daily.

The camps, each for 150 inmates, will appear all over the
territory-in Krasnodar, Armavir, Tikhoretsk, and Temryuk on the coast
of the Sea of Azov. Each camp will cater for a particular
nationality. Ukrainians and Moldovans will be committed to the
Temryuk camp, close to a Crimea-bound ferry, Armenian nationals to
the Krasnodar, and Central Asians to several camps along the
territory’s eastern border.

“The inmates will have decent conditions. We shall put them up in
warm tents with stoves and plank floors. They’ll be able to take a
shower, share the guards’ diet, and see the doctor when necessary.
The camps will certainly need guards to keep local hoodlums off the
premises-and, certainly, as trouble-shooters if, let say, inmates of
the men’s and women’s quarters start a squabble between themselves,”
says one Colonel Gubenko.

The immigrants will be deported at their own expense or of local
people who have invited them. “We hope ethnic communities will pay
the fares. It’s easy to expel, say, a Tajik or an Uzbek-we’ll pack
them off by bus to the Russian frontier in the Astrakhan Region
nearby. But how about the Vietnamese? They’ll need air tickets-reckon
the fares!” reasons the police officer.

The territorial police board set up a 400-strong immigration
inspection force under its migration squad to supervise aliens and
their employment throughout the Kuban country.

More than 400 aliens have been deported from the Krasnodar Territory
since the year’s start, and close on 50,000 held administratively
liable.