Terrorism: real or imaginary?

Tragic events in the Moscow subway have again triggered rumors of a terrorist threat in the Crimea. Some pro-Russian political forces (Russian Bloc and Tauric Union) have demanded banning a representative body of the Crimean Tatars “in order to avert unlawful, including terrorist, acts on the Crimean territory.” Besides, a week before this the former Crimean police chief Hennadii Moskal said that Crimean Tatars were being “ousted” from governmental bodies, which can strengthen the position of extremists, i.e., the Hizb-ut-Tahrir party.

DANGEROUS RHETORIC

Two mutually exclusive messages have been thrown into the informational field: one of them considers the Majlis as a source of danger, while the other says it is a barrier to the spread of an extremist ideology in the Crimea. Which of these claims is right and wrong? Or, to be more exact, what is to be done in this situation and should we be afraid of terrorist acts on the territory of Crimea?

The pro-Russian politicians claim that statements of the Majlis leadership about the establishment of an ethnic state in the Crimea “are creating conditions for likely terrorist actions in the future.” Incidentally, it is not said whether this threat emanates from the Crimean Tatars or whether they will provoke other terrorists. The Majlis called these statements a lie and a provocation aimed at destabilizing the situation in the Crimea. According to Ali Hamzin, chief of the Majlis’ foreign relations department, the Russian Bloc and the Tauric Union are thus attempting to undermine Ukraine’s stable relations with the EU and the US, “forming the vision of our state as an undemocratic country.” “This provocative address can not only trigger an interethnic conflict but also present danger for Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a whole,” Mr. Hamzin said.

The trouble is that these seemingly customary wrangles may in fact prompt us to overlook the challenges from which everybody can suffer, irrespective of their ethnicity and political persuasions. Indeed, terrorism, as a systematic application of terror for political purposes, has no clear definition and is multifaceted. Besides, all participants in the political process use even the threat of terrorism (no matter in which of its manifestations) to pursue their own aims.

As is known, on October 23, 2009, SBU operatives and policemen apprehended two At-Taqfir wal-Hijra activists in the Crimea, who had explosives and weapons. According to the then Interior Minister Yurii Lutsenko, the extremists were hatching the assassination of Mustafa Dzhemilev. Moreover, the latter said he was sure that Russian secret services stood behind the arrested extremists. The local authorities in turn expressed skepticism about such wording as “terrorists,” “extremists,” “Islamists,” etc.

The Crimean Republican Committee for Religion failed to confirm or deny the information that there were Taqfir militants on the peninsula. The committee deputy chairman Aider Bulatov cautioned against the undue politicization of this matter and called for a more judicious use of the words “terrorism” and “extremism” in political rhetoric. “This issue was again picked up from the garbage bin before the [presidential] elections. We eventually saw that there were no terrorists, otherwise competent bodies, including the SBU, would have dealt with this. The issue remained at the level of the Crimea’s Main Police Department, which means that no terrorism is involved here,” he noted.

PROVOCATIVE CARDS ARE RUNNING OUT

A paradoxical situation is in the offing: six months ago the Majlis leader Mustafa Dzhemilev narrowly escaped a terrorist attack, but now the Majlis poses a threat for certain local political forces. The root cause of those statements is different.

The traditionally pro-Russian forces had been cultivating the Crimean political field, using the subjects of the language, NATO, and interethnic relations. Once the Party of Regions team with Viktor Yanukovych at the head came to power, the “professional” Russians in the Crimea were left without the former and the latter.

That they used to demand that the former President Viktor Yushchenko “observe the rights of the Russian-speaking population” and scathingly criticize him for a “pro-Western course” somehow fitted in with the logic of events. Now it is difficult to imagine that the Russian community will, for example, be raising customary claims on the new government, all the more so that they are in the same coalition at the Crimean Supreme Soviet.

Activists of these organizations protested every year against holding the Sea Breeze exercise in the Crimea with the participation of NATO member states’ troops. But it is not clear to them how to behave this year. For, according to Defense Minister Mykhailo Yezhel, all the international military exercises with participation of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, planned for this year, will be held to schedule. “This also applies to the international Sea Breeze exercise which is open to partners and is one of the main items in the combat training of the Ukrainian Navy,” the minister said.

For this reason, the aforesaid political forces of the Crimea can do nothing but play the already worn-out ethnic card.

WHO STANDS TO GAIN?

I will not be original if I say that whipping up a “terrorist hysteria” can benefit somebody outside Ukraine. This, first of all, applies to Russia because a destabilized situation in Crimea can be used as a pretext for some, not necessarily military, intervention. It is alarming, though, that as long ago as October 2009 Russia’s State Duma allowed deploying Russian troops outside the federation.

Local-type Euroskeptics can say in response that as soon as this country joins a union with Russia and Belarus, this problem will vanish into thin air. At the same time, in terms of combating the terrorist threat, this alliance is disadvantageous to Ukrainian citizens, especially the Crimeans. For a union state, such as the one that Minsk and Moscow have been “successfully” building for so many years, presupposes joint deployment of the member states’ armed forces. I do not think the Ukrainians on both banks of the Dnieper are exactly bursting to fight for somebody else’s interests in Osetia, Abkhazia, Chechnya, or elsewhere. In that case Ukrainian cities could become a target for suicide bombers, such as those who claimed about forty human lives in the Moscow metro.

There are periodical reports that radical Islamists are being trained in the territory of Crimea. For example, last summer the media reported about a madrasah in the village of Azovske, but this was never confirmed.

Combating extremism is the preserve of competent services whose activities are a closely guarded secret by law. For, pardon my tautology, “terrorizing” the populace with information about a “terrorist threat” only hinders their work – especially in the Crimea, where ethnic and religious tension is gradually diminishing, which can only inspire satisfaction. Those Crimeans who do not torment themselves with political questions will derive little benefit from the “terrorist hysteria” because the holiday season is coming up and informational attacks of this kind are not conducive to the inflow of holidaymakers. Fewer and fewer of them are coming every year even without a “terrorist threat.”