The next domino in the former U.S.S.R.'s "velvet revolutions" may be Bashkortostan, which like Chechnya is still a part of the Russian Federation. Opposition forces in the Siberian "republic" of Bashkortostan are laboring to overthrow their current leader and plan to demonstrate in Moscow on Friday to petition the Kremlin to dismiss President Murtaza Rakhimov. The demonstrators will present Russian officials with a petition with more than 117,000 signatures calling for Rakhimov's removal. Opposition leader Ramil Bignov said: "Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan. The next stop is possible in Bashkortostan." Besides the Moscow demonstrations, opposition activists also plan to picket the presidential administration building in Ufa, the Bashkir capital, beginning on May 1, erecting a tent camp there. Last weekend 5,000 protesters rallied in Ufa to protest welfare reforms replacing state benefits with cash payments. In an echo of the corruption charges levied against former Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev's family, demonstrators are calling for nationalization of oil companies they claim were illegally seized by the president's family. Interestingly enough, Rakhimov's son, Ural is reportedly financing the opposition. Conflict between father and son became public in February when members of the Parliament close to Ural sought to oust the president's speaker of the loyal assembly, Konstantin Tolkachev. Bashkirs -- who make up half the 4 million population of Bashkortostan -- are ethnically linked to the Tartars and linguistically to the Turkic peoples.
I wonder if Putin is behind this. |
