The XXII Winter Olympics will soon open in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, in Southern Russia. When, on 4 July 2007, the city of Sochi was selected to host the Games, overcoming competition from Salzburg in Austria and Pyeongchang in South Korea, President Vladimir V. Putin guaranteed that the Games would be a “safe, enjoyable and memorable experience”.
The Sochi Games are very much President Putin’s personal project. He personally defended the Russian bid before the International Olympic Committee during its final selection session in Guatemala City, and he set very ambitious targets for the Games’ success, with expenditure reaching 47 billion US dollars, the most expensive ever. His personal involvement in the preparation of venues for the scheduled activities has been given much publicity in the Russian media. President Putin’s political message is clear: the Winter Olympics in Sochi will demonstrate that Russia is back on the superpower track, and that it is in full control of the restive republics in the North Caucasus.
However, the reality behind the public relations glamour is very different. In August 2013, President Putin decreed a virtual state of emergency in the city of Sochi and its surroundings. Some 40,000 police officers have been deployed, together with an impressive presence of army units, to ensure security during the preparations for the Games. On 7 January 2014, one month before the opening of the Games, restrictions on movement in and around Sochi entered into effect. All Olympic venues and infrastructure, including the coastal Olympic park and the mountain cluster of skiing facilities, as well as transport hubs, have been declared “controlled” areas. Other areas in Sochi’s neighbourhood, such as Sochi’s national park, are “forbidden” areas, and highways leading to the city have been blocked. A Presidential decree stipulates that all gatherings, protests and demonstrations in Sochi and the surrounding area must be approved by the Federal Security Service, by the police and by the local government. Russian citizens visiting Sochi are subjected to a mandatory registration system. The Federal Security Service has put in place an unprecedented surveillance programme, including sophisticated cyber spying measures.
Security has become a paramount concern at all major international sports events, and Olympic gatherings offer a special attraction to terrorists, separatists and all sorts of activists for publicizing their cause worldwide in the most spectacular way possible. Many of my age group surely remember the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Black September terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The extensive security measures taken by President Putin to protect the Sochi Olympics, though heavy-handed, are certainly not exaggerated considering that the Games are taking place in the immediate neighbourhood of the anti-Russian insurgency in the North Caucasus. The two deadly suicide bombings at a crowded railway station in the city of Volgograd on 29 and 30 December 2013, killing at least thirty-one people, have raised the spectre of a wave of terrorism targeting the Sochi Olympics.
The armed insurgency in the North Caucasus is by far the most violent in Europe today. According to the Crisis Watch Database published by the International Crisis Group, the conflict left 1225 victims (700 killed and 525 wounded) in 2012, and during the first six months of 2013, at least 242 were killed and 253 wounded. During December 2013, in addition to the massacres at Volgograd station mentioned earlier, Crisis Watch reported ten other violent attacks resulting in the death of at least twenty-six people.
The North Caucasus has been a turbulent region ever since it was occupied by the Russian Empire nearly two centuries ago. The Russian conquest of the Caucasus started in 1817 and ended with the battle of Krasnaya Polyana in 1864, in the mountains less than 50 kilometres from Sochi, where the snowboarding and skiing events are to be held. The Czar's military used extreme violence, razing villages and deporting whole communities of indigenous peoples, mostly Muslims, who were transferred to the Ottoman Empire. One can understand why emotions ran high when Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel fighter who now leads the North Caucasus insurgency, fulminated in a video, “They (the Russians) plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims, buried on the territory of our land on the Black Sea” And he proceeded to call the Sochi Games “satanic”.
The North Caucasus District, one of the eight federal districts of the Russian Federation, is characterized by ethnic and religious diversity. Ethnic Russians amount to less than one-third of its population and they are concentrated in Stavropol Krai. The remaining population consists of an assortment of ethnic groups, most of them Muslims. A sectarian divide between Sufis and Salafis runs deep within the Muslim community, adding to the complexity of the insurgency.
The current armed insurgency started in the early 1990s, following the break-up of the Soviet Union. It originated as a separatist struggle for independence, but the nationalist cause soon merged with an Islamist jihad against the repressive Russian infidel. Chechnya saw the worst of the violence suffering two full-scale wars in which an estimated 80,000 Chechens, mostly civilians, died. By the time a cease-fire with Chechnya was agreed in August 2009, the insurgency had spread outside Chechnya and a region-wide resistance proclaimed the establishment of the “Caucasus Emirate”, an independent political entity founded on Sharia Law. Its military branch, the Caucasian Front, has been added by the UN Security Council to the list of entities associated with al-Qaeda.
Stabilising the North Caucasus republics has always been a challenge for Russia. Its characteristic heavy-handed approach has not worked. Recently some modest steps were taken for integrating the region. Unfortunately, with the approach of the Sochi Olympics, even these modest attempts have been reversed.
In early 2010, the authorities in Dagestan, the most restive republic, came forward with some promising measures for a political solution. The regime against non-violent Salafis was relaxed, a commission to rehabilitate former fighters was set up, and dialogue between Sufis and Salafis was encouraged. A similar conciliatory approach was launched in the other republics. Moreover, in August 2011, the Russian government announced plans to create a Caucasian Silicon Valley, at a cost of 32 billion roubles (1.1 billion US dollars) as part of on-going efforts to generate employment opportunities in this troubled region.
However, in January 2013, President Putin replaced Dagestan's president and overhauled the republic's security strategy. A wave of repression against Dagestan's Salafi community followed. It included mop-up operations in villages, the arrest of large groups of Salafis from cafes and madrassas, and the intimidation of moderate Salafi leaders, civic organizations and businesses. The inter-sectarian dialogue ceased, and the commission for the rehabilitation of fighters was closed. As a result Salafi civic activity was driven underground, leading to further radicalization of the Islamic cause. A similar reversal of the conciliatory approach is taken place in other North Caucasus republics, particularly in Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
It is in everybody’s interest that the Sochi Olympics are secure. The unprecedented security measures that President Putin has put in place will probable ensure that the Games will run peacefully, although there is the fear that with security so tight around Sochi, insurgents who want to disrupt the Games might turn to softer targets elsewhere.
However, one should look beyond the Sochi Olympics. The harsh and repressive counter- insurgency policies adopted by the Russian government in the run-up to the Games will probably intensify the North Caucasus conflict. Once the Games are over, it will be difficult to rebuild trust and return to the path of reconciliation.
The founders of the Olympic Games intended to promote peace and understanding among nations through healthy competition in sports. It is a pity that the Sochi Olympics are leading to further radicalization of the North Caucasus insurgency, and are driving the parties involved further apart.