What’s behind the “Odesa skinheads case”?
The news that foreign students are being physically assaulted in Odesa was first heard approximately a month ago, when hundreds of students attending Odesa State Medical University, mostly from the Middle East, staged a protest rally, demanding protection from systematic assaults and beatings by organized groups of young people described repeatedly as members of a neofascist skinhead movement. “Skinheads mug and kill us on the street, and the police are not doing anything about it,” Arab students shouted, displaying as proof bloodstained blazers and track shoes that may belong to victims of such attacks. They also described the murder of a Sudanese student, which bore the hallmarks of a racially motivated attack that has upset people from Moslem countries. Dr. Saad Al Tundzhi, coordinator of the Syrian student community, says that eight Syrian students were mugged in Odesa in April, more than during the previous year. One student was attacked with particular cruelty. “He told me his assailants were three men wearing black masks,” Dr. Saad said, “but the most alarming fact is that it happened in April, the month in which Lenin, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein were born.”
Until that day, people in Odesa knew about the skinheads only from hearsay. No one ever imagined that they would come out in the open, not in a city known worldwide for its multiethnic hospitality. Yet some of the student protesters were eloquent in describing skinhead atrocities, so much so that for a while the residents of Odesa believed that neo-fascists were rampaging on their streets. Another protest action was held near the campus of the National Polytechnic University, which has the second largest body of foreign students in Odesa. These events were extensively covered by the local and national media, which caused a considerable stir. An investigation was launched, personally supervised by the President of Ukraine. A special commission flew from Kyiv to Odesa, led by Deputy Interior Minister Mykhailo Korniyenko. The assistance of the Security Service of Ukraine and the regional administration was also enlisted. Several days later the commission chairman declared, “There are no skinheads in Odesa, just as the atrocious murder of that Sudanese student never took place. These are just ordinary student brawls.” Other law enforcement task forces came to the same conclusion.
NOTHING TO DO WITH SKINHEADS
So what did happen? Hryhory Yepur, head of the regional directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says that several street clashes between Odesa and Syrian students took place, starting in late March. Those involved were between 18 and 21 years old. The causes and circumstances were banal. An intoxicated individual, who happened to be out in the street at 3 a.m., exchanged rude words with someone else; then someone left and returned with friends. One thing led to another, and there was a brawl. In the end, both sides filed complaints with the police. The incident had nothing to do with neo-fascist skinheads. Two criminal cases were opened, and mugging charges were filed. General Yepur stated, “We have forty transgressions on record over the past four months; in most cases, foreign students were mugged. There are also seventy-one offences committed by foreigners, including acts of violence within ethnic student communities, and homicides. A total of more than 10,000 crimes were committed in the city during this period.”
The police deny that the assaults and beatings of Arab students are racially motivated. There are no police records on the murder of the Sudanese student. However, the regional SBU says that a seventeen-year-old Liberian by the name of Smail Yusuf was brought to the refugee ward of Odesa’s Hospital #10 toward the end of March. The young man, who was suffering from severe psychosis, had multiple self-inflicted injuries, which were witnessed by many. Smail Yusuf was not a student in Odesa and had no legal grounds to stay in Ukraine; he was one of the so-called illegal migrants. Despite medical attention, his wounds proved fatal. He is buried at a city cemetery. Everything points to this accident as the source of the urban legend about a slaughtered Arab. Someone deliberately substituted Liberia for Sudan, a country that has long been considered the bulwark of the Moslem world.
STRUGGLING FOR THE EDUCATION MARKET
Even without the benefit of thorough investigations, it soon became apparent that someone is deliberately spreading stories about violent acts being committed against foreign students. Let’s try to figure out why. Foreign students are registered in Odesa’s various institutions of higher learning, with 70% of them at the State Medical University, National Polytechnic University, Mechnykov National University, and the State Academy of Cryogenics. The city’s sixteen higher educational establishments have an enrollment of 3,246 students from sixty-seven countries — or 15% of all foreign students in Ukraine. Today, Syrian students make up the largest ethnic community of Odesa (892 individuals), followed by students from China (773) and India (more than 200). These students are a major source of income for the local colleges and universities, and the rectors made every effort to resolve the conflict from the outset. “Odesa’s institutions of higher learning have had students from all over the world for more than forty years,” said Valery Malakhov, rector of the Polytechnic University and chairman of the board of rectors, at a press conference. “Among our graduates are noted scientists, politicians, even a president and a deputy minister of agriculture of Mongolia, a foreign minister of Sudan, and a deputy minister of China. We do our best to provide foreign students with adequate living and academic conditions in Odesa. Of course, there are problems in both domains. For example, students must always have passports on them, because of constant checks of residence permits, but these problems have nothing whatsoever to do with racially motivated assaults and beatings. I think someone is trying to undermine the prestige of our universities, as well as our city and our country.” Dmytro Donchenko, head of the regional education department, echoes Mr. Malakhov’s opinion: “There is a fierce struggle for the education market taking place in the world today. We have just started restoring the positions that we lost in the 1990s, so someone out there is trying to cast a shadow on Odesa’s colleges and universities, even though this city is known throughout the world for its friendliness and absence of interethnic problems.”
Therefore, one explanation points to the fact that someone may be adding fuel to the fire of speculations concerning acts of violence against foreign students in Odesa in order to tarnish the prestige of Odesa’s institutions of higher learning and reallocate the flow of money.
PRESSURING THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION?
Let’s consider another possibility. Foreign students are largely supplied to Ukraine in general, and Odesa in particular, by private firms that are closely connected with ethnic communities in other countries, and which earn a pretty decent income as intermediaries. Theoretically, they must guarantee a certain academic level and transportation home for these students in the event that they are expelled; otherwise the university or Ukrainian taxpayers would have to absorb such costs. In such cases, students naturally try to prolong their stay in Ukraine, which is exactly what happened at the medical university.
Prior to the above-mentioned events, the rector of this university signed an order expelling sixty-three foreign, mostly Arab, students. In fact, Deputy Interior Minister Mykhailo Korniyenko hinted at this in his statement. A large proportion of these students were never sent home, owing to lack of funds. Several days later, they were the most vociferous participants of the protest rally held in front of the university, although none of them protested against their expulsions. Now they were acting as defenders of the foreign students’ honor and dignity. Why did the rector expel these students, thereby depriving the university of a source of income? Rector Valery Zaporozhan explained that the university has very exacting academic requirements and that the students in questions could not meet them. In addition, not all of them had made their tuition payments on time. The rector, however, omitted two important facts: (a) that the expulsion enactment was signed on the eve of the arrival of an attestation commission from Kyiv and the upcoming elections of the rector, and (b) that some of the expelled students had been cutting lectures for six months at a time. The number of foreign student enrollments at the medical university is increasing every year. The teaching staff, however, point to another growing and troubling trend: the educational and intellectual level of new students is on a steady downward curve. “The impression is that they fly here not to study, but to have a good time and learn to drink vodka,” some professors complain, adding that this largely explains the brawls. “They pay for receiving good grades, so you can imagine the kind of specialists they will make.” It is common knowledge in Odesa that a number of foreign students spend every semester at a bazaar known as the Seventh Kilometer, using their student cards to legalize their stay in Ukraine. Those with more money start dummy businesses, cafОs, and shops that often lead to violent conflicts with local businessmen. Loss of student status leads to financial problems. If you combine all these factors, it is safe to assume that the case of the Odesa skinheads was aimed at blackmailing the university administration. And everything was superbly planned (perhaps “professionally” is the right word). Off the record, an alternative to the protest rallies was clearly formulated: reinstatement of the expelled students and restoration of certain privileges for the foreign students.
NO GAIN WITHOUT LOSS
The third version has to do with the Syrian ethnic community. Its people say that for many years Odesa has been an especially attractive place for visiting Arabs, largely because of the residents’ and the authorities’ tolerant attitude toward people of various ethnic origins. But most important is the fact that some especially enterprising Syrians have settled there. The millionaire Adnan Kivan built an Arab cultural center. Other community leaders, who are keeping in the shadows, also have similar influence and capital. As a result, the Syrian community alone officially numbers over 3,000 people (about 20,000 unofficially). “When there were fewer Arabs in Odesa, we were treated better,” says Dr. Saad, adding, “I have lived and worked in Ukraine for eighteen years, and we’ve never had problems like the ones we’re facing now.” Some sources point to recent confrontations within the Arab community. Therefore, another assumption is that fueling the fire of the foreign student issue is playing into someone’s hand in that ethnic community, someone who is keen on increasing his authority. Dr. Saad admits that the tensions arising from the acts of violence against Arab students made the local authorities pay attention to that community’s problems. “To paraphrase the old saying, there is no gain without loss,” he says. Eventually, the foreign students and interior ministry officials made certain arrangements. From now on, police patrols will be keeping an eye on the student towns, and students will be forming voluntary public order squads. Most importantly, the deputy interior minister has actually agreed to allow the foreign students to use their ID cards in lieu of passports. This will make life easier for both students and illegal migrants.
