Newspaper Looks At Flaws In Law To Urge Russian Repatriation

Yuzhnyy Reporter, Rostov-on-Don
10 Jul 06

A Rostov-based independent newspaper comments on President Putin’s
recent decree on state support for the programme to return Russians
from abroad. The programme is criticized for its focus on ethnic
Russians, plans to help returnees settling in a limited number
of regions beyond southern Russia, disregard for diasporas of
non-Russian ethnicity as well as ethnic Russians who returned to
Russia before the decree was signed. The following is the text of
Svetlana Lukyanchikova’s report by Russian newspaper Yuzhnyy Reporter
on 10 July headlined "Signs of compatriot". Subheadings have been
inserted editorially:

Four million compatriots abroad have been offered a chance to return
home. According to Vladimir Putin’s decree on state support for
the resettlement programme, Russia is ready to provide for the great
return of peoples but only those who agree to settle in under-populated
regions and those who are "Russian
in spirit". The Southern Federal District comes under none of the
categories
of regions identified for resettlement under the programme. None of
the numerous diasporas of Caucasus peoples come under the notion of
"compatriots" which has greatly surprised experts. Nor can we find
among our long-awaited compatriots those who returned earlier and
are staying illegally across the vast expanses of their homeland.

Programme features

Never has Russia seen so much thought being given to the destiny of
compatriots as of late. The foreign reserves of Russian genes have
for decades been replenished with a steady flow of various waves of
emigration. They recalled the reserve gene stock when, to quote the
apt remark of sociologist Anatoliy Golov, they saw that "there are no
people left to work in Russia". President Putin’s decree "On measures
of assistance for the voluntary return of compatriots living abroad
to the Russian Federation" and the relevant state programme clearly
define the time frame for its implementation, regions for returnees
to settle and material incentives.

Three phases of return are envisaged for 2006-12. The first phase
(2006) envisages efforts to compile and coordinate regional programmes
for resettlement, prepare and collect regulations and documents. The
second phase of resettlement of volunteers and their families will
start in 2007. Starting from 2009, additional measures will be taken
to make life easier for re-settlers and tackle the influx of new
returnees following in the pioneers’ footsteps.

No pioneers are expected to come to Moscow Region, big metropolises,
economically advanced entities of the Russian Federation and the
problem republics of the North Caucasus. The programme is designed for
three categories of regions. Category A includes "border territories
of strategic importance for Russia", such as Krasnoyarsk Territory,
Khabarovsk Territory and Maritime Territory; Kaluga Region,
Tver Region, Kaliningrad Region, Lipetsk Region, Tambov Region,
Amur Region, Yakutsk Region, Tyumen Region and Novosibirsk Region.
Category B includes territories implementing large-scale investment
projects which require skilled workforce. Category C includes
territories depopulated through overall decline and migration. The
[part of the] Southern Federal District bordering on the "problem"
North Caucasus republics failed to come under category A. Its borders
are not external: they are Russian internal borders although "hot"
ones. Still… [ellipsis as published]

"Cossack families could be settled in areas bordering on Chechnya,"
said Vladimir Nikitin, deputy head of the State Duma committee for CIS
affairs and relations with compatriots, "or [Russian Orthodox sects]
Dukhobors from Georgia or Molokans from Armenia. Those people can
defend themselves and are good at farming. It would benefit all.

Motivation for return

Resettlement problems have been tackled in federal laws and regional
programmes but without tangible effect. The drastic difference of
the new programme from previous ones is that it offers financial
incentives to resettlers. Subsidies offered by the government attract
people better than nostalgic white birches. "Financial support for
repatriation efforts shall be provided from the federal budget,
budgets of entities of the Russian Federation and local budgets as
well as funds provided by legal entities and individuals," a programme
clause reads. It lays down clearly who of the returnees is to receive
payments and what for, ranging from the cost of passage to their future
place of residence to travelling allowance and monthly relief. It
does not specify figures although. All that depends on the condition
of the abovementioned budgets and the purse of individuals and legal
entities interested in the inflow of workforce. Yet there is some
mercantilism about the programme that grates upon many local patriots.

"If the programme focuses on the problem of workforce shortage in
under-populated areas, we don’t need such a programme," Vladimir
Karatayev, chairman of the executive committee of the Union of Slavs
of Adygeya, has voiced his firm opinion. "In terms of liberal market,
it makes no difference for the owner of a transnational corporation
whether workers producing their oil or iron ore are Chinese, Africans,
Tajiks or Russians. We can open our borders for workforce and have
another China here in five years. There is a question of greater
importance for our state: who is to live on these lands in the
end? First of all, it is necessary to return ethnic relatives to
those peoples that created Russia."

"People coming back here would have the firm motivation of patriotism,"
Mikhail Serkov, chieftain of the Cossack district of the Ter Cossack
Host, echoes him. Their choice to return was conscious. They have
retained traditions and qualities that we lack.

At the start, the state is ready to materially support them to "bring
back" all those things but only in specified places. If the keepers of
traditions want to share them with others in places other than those
listed in the programme, the money invested in their relocation will
have to be returned to the state. Such is the follow-up mechanism.

Definition of compatriots

Last comes a question over which everyone has stumbled: the developers,
researchers and practical executors of the programme. What are the
characteristics of compatriots?

According to the programme, people can be qualified as compatriots
if they were "brought up within Russian culture, know Russian and do
not want to lose touch with Russia".

"This is a normal programme designed for Russian returnees," Vladimir
Potnykh, a representative of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration,
said with satisfaction. "This is the first time the legislation of the
Russian Federation features the notion of ‘persons of nationalities
which have or do not have their own statehood outside the Russian
Federation’. For this alone, we are ready to turn a blind eye to all
other flaws," he said.

Russian patriots hold the view that the state should decide for the
future of which peoples it is going to bear responsibility. Above
all the notion of compatriots should apply to ethnic groups having
no statehood anywhere but Russia. Many experts interviewed by
Yuzhnyy Reporter fear that, having a "Russian speaking" emphasis in
compatriot definition, we may just in a few years see Russia peopled
by Russian-speaking Tajiks and Chinese who do not want to "lose touch
with Russia" for various circumstances.

"The priority position of the Russian language is in glaring
contradiction with the constitution of the Russian Federation and
the earlier state law on compatriots," said Murat Berzegov of the
non-governmental organization Circassian Congress. "Russia is a federal
state. This is why there are two official languages in Dagestan,
Tatarstan and Adygeya. Why should only a Russian speaker be regarded
as a compatriot? Why can’t someone speaking Tatar (one of Tatarstan’s
official languages) and English become a compatriot? How about the
five-million Caucasus diaspora? Many Adygs would like to come back
home for instance from Syria where Arab nationalism prevails. First,
why should such returnees go to Krasnoyarsk Territory while their
homeland is Adygeya? Second, peoples of the Caucasus somehow don’t
fall under this decree in the first place".

According to Berzegov, the programme the way it is now can trigger
off an upswing of conflict situations and an avalanche of lawsuits.

"There should be one law on compatriots for all indigenous peoples,"
he said.

Forgotten Russians

Missing from the programme is one more constituent of migration
problems: concern for the future of those compatriots who returned
to their homeland without waiting for presidential decrees.

"We are some 10 years late with this programme," said sociologist
Anatoliy Golov. "We create absolutely senseless obstacles to people
who returned five or
seven years ago and still remain stateless," he said.

"I spent five years as a Cossack chieftain in Chechnya," Cossack
ataman Mikhail Serkov recalls. "I saw Russians’ exodus and their
comeback. Programmes were created and money was allocated for them
but it didn’t reach the refugees. Those people’s children have grown
up since then without documents or school certificates. We need to
simplify the procedure for Russian returnees. We need normal people
with our mindset, people to work rather than roam about in the markets.

The State Duma committee for CIS affairs and relations with compatriots
has suggested a migration amnesty for this category of citizens and
simplifying the procedure for them to receive their documents. At
a round-table meeting devoted to the children of resettled Russian
compatriots held on 15 June, the State Duma worked out recommendations
for the government to introduce an interim document, yet this is beyond
the state programme "On measures of assistance for the voluntary
return of compatriots living abroad to the Russian Federation". The
state needs foreign compatriots but strictly in places assigned for
their return.