is work and everybody can hear like to welcome everybody to this morning's helsinki commission briefing on the situation in douglas ston we'd like to get started here because how we sort of envision a briefing is really an opportunity for an informal discussion with members of the audience questions at the commission we receive a lot of groups lot of delegations n g o s from from russia and regions we cover and this is sort of our way of opening it up to the public and having that reception and that discussion publicly the remarks are transcribed into become part of our official record so dug just on the most the most populated  largest of the north caucasus republics in southern russia has been in the news quite a lot lately not not a whole lot of the news is good i was i was sort of reading touch piece from a couple days ago and she says here there's never a quiet moment and august on there all the counterterrorism operations where entire houses are destroyed and helicopters fire away in the mountain gorges there are explosions in the streets and finding bombs that have not gone off yet has become a routine event doug astonished provides a lot of news none of it any good and yet few people really understand what is happening there it is hard to get an objective picture of events in such a complex place home to more than thirty ethnic group speaking numerous languages in fact it is all but impossible even more so when the media propagate myths that are often beyond absurd i certainly hope today's discussion helps us to better understand this very complex region  d we have three distinguished experts hello just arrived i believe from russia a couple days ago we're very happy to have them here and i would like to specially thank freedom house and ella sawyer and for helping us to put this together we often have to rely on who's here in washington to brief us and sometimes you know you get tired of the same old experts in the same old pundits we have so it's nice to have some some serious expertise  from the region we may be joined today by our chairman alcee hastings and i think we'll try to keep we do have to go through an interpreter so let's try to keep remarks to about ten minutes panelists and i think we'll finish all three presentations and then move to question and answer hopefully we can have a lively discussion following the presentations yeah and i assume everybody had a chance to pick up the witness biographies i want to spend any time on them but you can read about our our distinguished panelists in the handouts and there are some out there of anyone didn't get any  and even though sometimes these abuses are a deal done through the judicial procedure the sentences and the verdicts are awful are often  what's obvious for me is that initially there were small groups they were acting independently from each other steadily they are getting more and more organized in a understandable that this type of underground woman would need some sort of underlying ideology and now islam increasingly becomes that underlying ideology of what our diet  was caused by these islamic resistance or underground movement or the outright assault on islam by the government because that type of  the resistance in opposition movement was suppressed right now there's a trial going on there there were basically fifty nine people who were scapegoated they were yanked out of emotion oh ok while i'll turn i'll try to say a couple of horses in english i hope you will understand me i don't want to repeat what my colleague but when more and more islam as well as a caucasian traditions so called that be coming to the main peelers of is a part of russia and so on but at the same time he pretends to be spiritual leader says lama tradition well of course he doesn't want to become a movie or email but who knows what will have in the future because it's it's not a problem  the same time it doesn't practical work in russia some itself to justify my opinion i can mention the case of her dad of course kate i think it's enough and from that point of view some presidents and often coke i guess not in charge now i don't believe they will stay in the frames of russian federation because nobody needs in europe i don't know what about the united states but nobody needs it totally and what to do with it with them so they will stay all of them will stay in the frames in the front in the boundaries of russian federation but from the point of culture from the point of view of mentality from the point of view but practical and not understandable for fort and i'm i beg your pardon so what about as a future as usual we are asked and what do you think we'll  a me in a year or so i don't know it depends on a lot of things in particular into my opinion it depends on how the crisis economy crisis will develop if it's of modernisation even more if suddenly they can believe it i can admit it but anyway if the if the if they put forward some idea of wall because because sometimes it seems to me that after two chechen wars people began to think that everything is ok as it is no war it's a big mistake very big mistake  for political influence and this fight against radical islam or against the hobbits becomes a bargaining chip as it's a way to appeal to the federal religious fundamentalism so there's a need for a new leader for the province so this is a way to bring about change and replacement of the political elites  background on the current situation and i just on the first of all must say that just on was not mentioned as a hotspot until nine hundred ninety nine as process of forensic analysis of the body  i had an impression that his flash was cut off his body while the person was still alive to do you do use the drilled through his teeth audience and we have a microphone over here and i would ask that you identify yourself an organization if you're representing one we have an opportunity for questions and also recognize that there's a fair amount of expertise in the audience so if you if you have a brief comment that you would like to add please feel free to do so  we get get things started off myself then here you know as i as i listen to everybody's presentation it's it's it's such a you know it's such a complex eunice islam some which appears to be some foreign influence you know i think here in washington at least our most recent experience and looking at this part of the world comes from the said the second chech war and here particularly in congress you know there's so many issues that are you know vying for the attention of members of congress and policy makers and certainly this is far down the list on on those things that sort of appear in the news particularly without a major war and even even the war in chechnya was not widely covered and so what i think it here from a washington audience perspective sort of understanding the real differences between doug just on a chechen understanding just what you know what is what is the what is the future hold and it seems to me from the presentations and from what i've been sort of able to able to to follow and read and and conversations that the prospect of separatism isn't very real and august probably because of the complex ethnic makeup you know you have i think something like thirty major ethnic groups and probably more and speaking roughly thirty different languages that are related but not mutually intelligible to sort of this john mott structure from from the way d'agostini was settled which obviously has to do with the high mountains douglas on really being the cradle of islam in russia the old you know that advances the oldest city and the russian federation you know compared to at least chechnya his tory you know islam is much older and august and this structure around the jamaat and sort of the local village council that being the case or are we are we looking at sort of just perpetual violence and instability that will you know how does it spill over if it does what what's the answer you know and it is the problem in terms of from moscow's perspective is this a is this a situation where it's it's a lack of political will or a or a fear for any you know mid to high level official in moscow to sort of own the problem in an area that has been nothing but problems or is it to some of it stems from simply allow of understanding of the region i sat down a couple  weeks ago with enver history of serious expert on d'agostini on at the russian academy of sciences and how to you know at least a two hour conversation and i mean you know and still don't feel like a fully grown grasping the source of the issue and i'm thinking that experts like professor history of yourselves are far and few between is it the case that the policy makers in moscow simply don't understand the complicated fabric of society not just on to ever be able to impose a solution i know i'm throwing out a lot of sort of comment with questions and please feel free to them and follow them where you will but it also seems that what's one of the issues is the abandonment of the previous system of government and august on which is to me sort of vaguely reminiscent of lebanon pre civil war where you had sort of an allocation you know you know the odds are it's got so many positions in certain ministries the lezzies the locks that come weeks and that that although messy seem to preserve the stability and now where you have what looks to be sort of a federally imposed sort of vertical structure that doesn't seem to be working anyway i have a whole bunch more and i hope a document that was prepared by dimitri cossack who was plenty potential representative of the president of the russian federation in the southern federal district the memo was  group and that was the primary tool in fighting in those clans structures  t laws or legal entities and because of these people the effect was quite different from what was intended that area of know i was interested in getting your thoughts with russia's rising muslim population what implications or impact any into i didn't identify yourself with that's a major robert united states air force implications of  fifteen point five deal twinky well i think it's some may be around around nineteen or ninety and a half why because we had to dig into consideration migration from i don't think well there are different aspects of it of course which are very important for instance the presence of muslim soldiers in the russian army that creates some problems it's not very very difficult caucuses region is more than fifty percent of the population are younger than thirty at the hip through this but they than those coming from the former soviet republics and it's much harder for someone who came from northern caucasus to get employment as a migrant worker e muslim personalisation after they return back to their homes and these are closed systems because nobody would admit that it happens and there doesn't happen how can you contour or fight it like you said lot of we have a few more minutes if there's if there are any further questions or possible comments from the audience please yes sure that helps the tra of the numerous ethnic groups and august on in regions and the violence is you know of ours obviously a prominent group the president the interior minister are there two or three groups that one could cite or two or what we are just about out of time here i'd like to thank everybody for coming in particular like to thank our expert panel here for traveling all the way from russia and also just like to point out i'm sure many of you have read the bios or are know of our experts here but  it really is an honor for us to to provide this forum we know of the difficult circumstances that you work under in russia a number of your names are on these lists of anime's of the russian people in these extremist lists a number of your colleagues have been murdered for their work you know at the atlanta comes to us from a newspaper that's lost four journalists in recent years mr duncan mr sh clubs and most recently in january honest to see a board of i'm sure none of these murders have been solved i just wanted to underscore sort of the sobering reality that that you know where from where you're coming from and the great difficulty that you operate in it's certainly our pleasure and honor to host you here the guest on is a topic in the north caucasus in general that we will continue to focus on  commission hopes to visit the region we have not been in the region in years u s government has very little penetration and presence it's purely due to the security concerns in the region so hopefully possibly in the fall and also an announcement to everybody you can find our events and transcripts on the web site this this event will be transcribed and eventually i think they'll be a webcast up on you know if you want to review and next week next tuesday the twenty third we have a hearing on russia's human rights record from ten to noon in the capitol visitor center s v c two zero two two zero three and we'll be looking at issues of russia's compliance with human rights committee commitments ahead of the summit in july president obama's first trip to moscow we will look at three areas the area of religious freedom press freedom and business freedom in russia and that's next week for those who are interested it will be posted on the website and for those of us for those of us who don't get our notices in reports there's an opportunity to subscribe on line c s e e dot g o v like to thank you all for coming and the briefing is a