NATIONALISM REAL THREAT TO CIS

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
March 16, 2006

YEREVAN, March 16. /ARKA/. Manifestations of nationalism are
the most serious problems and a real threat to the CIS countries,
Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, RF Academy
of Sciences, Chairman of the Commission for Tolerance and Freedom of
Conscience Valery Tishkov told journalists in Moscow. According to
him, nationalism has been and will be manifested in many of the CIS
countries, particularly in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. “Twenty-nine
people were killed for racial reasons in Russia alone in 2005. Racism
has an ethnic basis in our country,” Tishkov said.

He also pointed out the serious problem of migration. Many
citizens see only negative in this process, without speaking of its
contribution to the development of construction, trade and service,
population growth. “Migrants used to go to remote regions to carry out
construction work before, whereas we can observe labor and business
migration now,” Tishkov said. He stressed that Russia “was, is and
will be a multinational country.”